Duck, Duck, Duck, JACKPOT! (Part 3 of 3)

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There are moments where the rare card of fortune is drawn from the deck of life.  The following story is one of which that happened to me, thanks mostly to the rationale and learned experiences shared from previous posts in this series that began with What of Divers and segued in strategy to Divergent Dabbling with Divers.  Start with those if you haven’t read them.  If you have, let’s dive into the finale that’ll bring this series to a triumphant close and may change your mentality to embrace, “A brace of greenheads will make any duck hunter happy.  They can have those ducks; I’ll take the Jackpot!”

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A lesson was learned. Despite the hundreds, if not thousands, of dabblers witnessed in previous hunts, their numbers were slowly diminishing – natural for late season migration. The initial hunts had vastly more birds, yet a spread of only dabblers decoys and Canadas (for “confidence”) proved little to show in the game bag. In a following hunt, albeit waning duck numbers, we limited out on mallards and ducks by adding just a dozen divers to our spread.

On the next hunt, in addition to the dozen divers used in the spread the week before, I added a 50 yard long line of bluebills and tossed a half dozen of my lucky buffies in a pocket at the base of the line as, not only are they great for visibility, they suck in bufflehead and also goldeneye (divers more prominently seen in late season). Anyway, after folding a passing goose during a picturesque sunrise, mallards were the only birds that locked in the spread – of which four were bagged.  It was the makings of a fine morning.

Off in the distance, though, was something else…Something exciting…Something that always gets my eyes beaming and heart beating to a more rapid tune. “Divers!” I let out.

Eight of them to be exact, and they were coming in HOT! During their quarter mile flight that took all of 1.81 seconds, two peeled off from the jetting echelon and made their approach along that line I put out. One zipped right into those bufflehead decoys like a lightsaber being drawn by “the force” to a Skywalker’s fighting hand. The other one may have had a little too much speed to put their landing gear down and, in turn, continued its course on rocketing wings.

That blur appeared to be a drake Bill or Ringer. Based on his approach, he still looked committed, so I told my blindmates to hold off on popping the duck that just landed in the lucky buffies until he swings back around and makes another approach.

Sure enough, after going 150 yards, he finally made his giant turn that resembles the arc of a Blue Angel when they’re turning around to make another approach. “Yep, he’s coming around,” I chimed again with a big smile. Normally, the smile would’ve been directed towards the spectacle that drake put on in the sky, but, on the contrary to established belief in previous posts, it was for what was hanging out in the dekes.

It had a dark body with a white head…surely not a butterball bufflehead…definitely not a dapper goldeneye. But a hen diver nonetheless. Thankfully, my dad, who’s a highly decorated bird taxidermist, raised me right to be able to identify most birds in a jiffy.

It was the type only heard in lore. If you’re in the ducking business long enough up here, you’ll eventually come across another hunter that’ll recall in a thick ‘Sotan accent, “Ohhh yaAAAaah…my uncle’s friend’s grandpa’s neighbor’s uncle saw one of dooose thirddyy years agooo out on ‘Mud Lake’.” If you’re lucky enough, the anecdote is presented in such a way that said “friend’s grandpa’s neighbor’s uncle” shot at it. If you’re really fortunate, they actually bagged it.

Being an aspiring trophy, bird collector (it helps to have a taxidermist in the family), I was doing cartwheels on the inside as I kept her in the corner of my eye – all the while maintaining to mind that drake, who was making another banking turn to set himself up better for his final descent into the decoys.

In those final two seconds before he came in range, I devised a game plan.

My first shot was dedicated to folding that drake out of the sky. Being that I’m shooting steel at a diver, I’d devote my second shot with shooting a report at the same drake to finish it off before it – all too commonly with divers – found life and dives underwater to be never seen or recoverable again. By that time, the grand prize would have finally taken flight to give it proper chase. And, in turn, that third shot was devoted for her.

I sure as hell better deliver considering this opportunity comes one in hundreds, if not thousands of lifetimes.

The cartwheels subsided in my head as I drew my shottie to my shoulder. Iceman I became; cool as a cucumber. While the moment seemed like minutes, three shots were fired in less than two seconds. As planned, two of those shots made their mark on the drake.

Like clockwork, she took to flight.

Just as all those times in the driveway shooting hoops with my dad, it was do or die time. Except I’m no kid anymore; it’s clutch time. I steadily swung my bead out in front of her and fired that third and final round.

In the blink of an eye, the once rapid wing beats folded and she plummeted down just as how my dad’s shots reigned down on the hoop in my driveway. And just as delicately as they made the swoosh sound when the ball drew nylon, so was the subtle splash she made on the water. The bombardment ended in success.

“HOLY SMOKES!  You guys know what just happened?!?!” I belted.
“Two birds in the bag!” a reply came.
“Not just any two birds, boys!!” I continued.
“Huh, I guess they looked like some sort of divers”, another answered.
“Divers, yes.  That black one that dropped first looks to be a standard, drake ringneck – quite common.  But do you know what that second bird was???” I kept prying.
“No clue, man…”

As Zephyr, my buddy’s lab, was swimming its way back with the trophy in its mouth I responded, “That there is the stuff of legend in these parts…(I paused to let it sink in)…a hen oldsquaw, or long-tailed duck as they call them in our modern day and age.”

“A WHAT?!” they questioned.

“Exactly. She’s a type of sea duck. Few migrate through the Great Lakes as they’re more common on the Atlantic and Pacific. And sure as heck not for us, here, on some dinky, shallow slough in the southwest metro (of Minneapolis).”

Which perfectly served up humoring the guys with the Dumb and Dumber adage, “I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this…That John Denver is full of sh*t, man.”  In between the laughter and a grin the size of Montana I chuckled, “She flew a sixth of the way across the continent in the wrong direction and parked it in my lucky buffies…”

And finally a lesson was learned with my final remarks, “So, in my experiences, the reason those bufflehead decoys I set out there is to add spread visibility and to pull in the buffleheads and goldeneyes.  But I guess if you want to win the jackpot as a duck hunter, it looks like they also can suck in a rarified long-tailed from half the country away!”

We went on to shoot a couple more mallards before calling it a day for the ages.

Later that night I brought her over for the old man, who unfortunately couldn’t make the hunt that morning, to inspect. He knew his long-tails. Some of his friends gave him a few to work his taxidermy magic with after some hunts they made out on the Atlantic and Pacific; one, of which, took first place in state competition. For this reason, while handing her over to him, I had to go slightly easy on him since he’d be the one mounting her for me.

“I’ve learned many a lesson from you over the years, Pops. You know, the sorts of respecting your elders and such. Elders who say, ‘there aren’t any divers, just dabblers’ out on some metro slough. Next time, you say divers aren’t needed in a spread, I’ll respect your word. But they’ll be the first I put out!”