D Loop Media

Ah yes, the beauty of the solo hunt, just a hunter, his equipment and the peacful sounds of nature. The birds chirping, the warm September sun gently caressing through the shade of my layout blind.

Well, it was more like the blazing September sun at eleven am diagnosing me with early forms of skin cancer, the crows cawing and bees flying in my blind. Still, I sat, focused, waiting for that one flock to come to their day roost and boy did they.

It was picture perfect they flew in from behind me low, maple-leafing as I could hear the wind rip through their feathers. The moment of truth had come. I had started my day at 3:45am to make the half hour drive home to pick up my gear and the half hour drive back down to hunt, it was now just after eleven and they were finally here.

I popped up and dropped one, then another, I attempted a comeback call on the remaining twenty eight birds to no avail, my temporary moment of glory was over and this was there the fun began.

My dog, Buck, had a scrape on his leg from Sunday that would leave him laid up for a few days, today being one of those days. I dropped one bird about 10 yards out and retrieved it no problem, the other one, however, was about 40 yards out. I stood on the edge of the pond and pondered for a few seconds, or minutes. There was absolutely no wind to push this bird anywhere, it was stuck 40 yards in the middle of a pond. Then a dead standing tree caught my eye. I jumped up to the lowest branch with full intentions of snapping off a nice four foot piece that would give me four extra feet of reach which could mean the difference between going home dry or soaked. To my suprise this lovely four foot retrieval stick snapped into two different useless two foot sticks. With no other sources I made my way out. As you can guess, yes I did get about ten feet from the bird and yes mass amounts of water started spilling over the brim of my waders, I charged through the last ten feet and got the bastard. I was completely soaked and now it was time to pick up decoys.

Now would be a good time to tell you that I didn't pack in alone, myself and my buddy Steve had brought two power hunters, six life sized floaters a video camera, a picture camera, my blind bag and my gun. It doesn't sound like much until you have to bring it all out (minus one blind, plus two wet geese) out by yourself. I threw everything I could into my backpack-style decoy bag, the contents include, six floaters, two dead geese, my industrial-sized blind bag complete with three full boxes of shells and the camera bags. This left me to carry the power hunter and my gun in my hands.

So I began my journey up to my truck with six inches of pond water in my waders. The backpack felt like it weighed literally close to 175 pounds and I practically had to drag the power hunter. Getting up to my truck was quite the obstacle course, heres how it went down:

Part 1: Grassy, mucky walk out of the pond area, take back-pack off, set all gear down, crawl under first electric fence. Elevation grade: 0% - Distance: 50 yards

Part 2: Pick up all gear, walk along heavily rutted tractor trail, take back-pack off, set all gear down, crawl under second electric fence. Elevation grade: 3% - Distance: 150 yards

Part 3: Pick up all gear hike up cow pasture with an exponential amount of bovine fecal matter, drag power hunter through numerous piles of shit. Elevation grade: 50% - Distance: 100 yards

Part 4: Use every last ounce of energy to throw gear over the final fence then crawl under the two foot gap to the shoulder of the road five feet up. Elevation grade: 216% - Distance: 1 yard

Ah yes, the ever-serene solo hunt.

Photos can be seen on the facebook page.

NIce write up bud!

Sounds like a blast!

great story. but the whole soaking wet and heavy packing just adds to the greatness of waterfowling. Or thats just me.!!