Our waterfowl season closed Sunday 1/31, and this weekend was for youth hunters. I took a young man named Rhyan who I met hunting and he and his Mom turned out to also be a member of my archery club. The father is out of the picture, I don't ask but he seemed like a real pos individual. Rhyan's usual hunting is his Mom takes him to the Don Edwards refuge at the south end of SF Bay, and while she sits on the side of a levee reading a book, he shoots divers and got his 1st goose (Candadian) this year.
I took him to the state refuge I've hunted since I started with my son in 2000, and we spent 14 hours in the refuge- entered just before 5am, and after we pulled decoys, walked 45 minutes back to my truck, and drove out, checked out after 7 pm. He generally shoots a Remington single shot 12 gauge, and when I lent him my Browning Gold Hunter he was amazed at what a better gun could do.
He shot 7 birds, we lost a hen mallard and a big bull sprig, and he brought home a nice bull sprig (which I'm getting ready for the freezer for future taxidermy when he can save up money to do it- after he buys a new shotgun) and took home a couple teal, a widgeon and a spoonie. We were hunting in the watergrass ponds and after an afternoon downpour what blackened the skies, the skys were filled with birds (lots of mallards too), geese (snow and speckle belly) and trumpeter swans overhead.
It was really emotional for me because my son and I have hunted these same ponds in the past, and now that he's 24 and finishing college we don't hunt that refuge together and only hunted one weekend together this season.And now I was hunting with a youth about the age my son was when we started, with the same name with that same look of excitement as he stared at the skys above him.
I was reliving all the great hunts we'd had there, and kind of had my 'life flash before my eyes' as I was chasing the downed bull sprig as he swam away to hide. I snapped this with my cell phone camera after the rain passed, I think I can say I saw God yesterday, saw Him at the end of the rainbow from the blind.
I took him to the state refuge I've hunted since I started with my son in 2000, and we spent 14 hours in the refuge- entered just before 5am, and after we pulled decoys, walked 45 minutes back to my truck, and drove out, checked out after 7 pm. He generally shoots a Remington single shot 12 gauge, and when I lent him my Browning Gold Hunter he was amazed at what a better gun could do.
He shot 7 birds, we lost a hen mallard and a big bull sprig, and he brought home a nice bull sprig (which I'm getting ready for the freezer for future taxidermy when he can save up money to do it- after he buys a new shotgun) and took home a couple teal, a widgeon and a spoonie. We were hunting in the watergrass ponds and after an afternoon downpour what blackened the skies, the skys were filled with birds (lots of mallards too), geese (snow and speckle belly) and trumpeter swans overhead.
It was really emotional for me because my son and I have hunted these same ponds in the past, and now that he's 24 and finishing college we don't hunt that refuge together and only hunted one weekend together this season.And now I was hunting with a youth about the age my son was when we started, with the same name with that same look of excitement as he stared at the skys above him.
I was reliving all the great hunts we'd had there, and kind of had my 'life flash before my eyes' as I was chasing the downed bull sprig as he swam away to hide. I snapped this with my cell phone camera after the rain passed, I think I can say I saw God yesterday, saw Him at the end of the rainbow from the blind.
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