by Rick » Thu Jan 28, 2021 8:44 am
Since COVID contact quarantine eliminated me from working veterans' weekend, I made yesterday my mudhole cleanup day and met clear skies and a fierce NW wind there. Have long hated NW winds for bringing finishing birds dead over the blind from behind, instead of around one end or the other. But, more recently, have come to see westerly fronts as harbingers of...well, nothing.
Which is what i saw of new birds on the run out. Though a couple dozen jacks had, at long last, taken to the big pond just south of me. Ran on to the back blind, which had been popular with pre-season big ducks, just to see, and found the ibis that had also taken to it before the shooting started were back in droves, but only moved a very few mottled pairs.
So to work I went, beginning with pushing the east end of the blind island out of the run, where the wind had again pushed it, and then staking it in place where I hope to find it in September. Still nothing to be seen in the air, except the bright blue sky that is my favorite. Next cleaned out the blind and readied it for covering, then slipped under the boat hide to pull the artificial "Blind Grass" covering from the bug's dog door when exiting and entering the boat for retrieved south of the blind.
Then, when I crawled out from under the hide and stood up in the back of the boat, it happened: I bumped what turned out to be a baker's dozen mallards that were landing with the poule d'eau decoys on the west end of my spread. In hindsight, I wish I'd noted if there were hens among them and how many, but all I saw was silver, green and orange, all absolutely brilliantly so in the sun as they rose and peeled out with the wind.
And in that moment, I knew it was "that moment," even though it was the lure of safe harbor with the poule d'eau, instead of my calling that created it.
I've long pointed to the birds that almost invariably show when we're packed up and heading down the run or levee as "Chamber of Commerce birds" saying, "Y'all come back." And late in the afternoon, when the last of this season's cover had been hauled away to allow a fresh start next year, the blind was covered and the last decoy was finally in its bag after fighting the relentless wind all day to do so had all but whipped my 70yr-old ass and made me question, for the first time in memory, the work's worth, the thought of those mallards made it so.