The 2020 hunting season promised to be one of the best yet, but as with most things in 2020, it fell short. I was looking forward to my first season with a working dog and had put tremendous time in to training and preparing for how hunting with dogs will bring new challenges and needs. The dogs and I had spent countless hours in the backyard training on obedience and gundog skills. Both the dogs and I benefitted from Cornerstone Gundog Academy’s online training app that gives you drills and problem solving for common issues. We traveled around town each weekend to various ponds for some water work and to train in new environments.
Our first hunt of the season with Sage was out with the crew at 737 Duck Club. I was put in touch with them through a mutual friend and joined the club for the first season with Sage to make sure we had plenty of reps. My cousin Greg joined in the fun and we watched the sun come up over acres and acres of corn stalks flooded to about knee height. It was a long and slow walk in the central Oklahoma red mud to get to the blind but we made it in time to set up a small spread of ducks and settle in.
As the ducks came in and we started to shoot, it became abundantly clear that Sage was not enjoying the noise. We were in a buried metal blind and with each report she tried to exit the blind. Lessons were learned, frustrated commands were yelled, it was anything but perfect. We shot a few ducks, lost a few in the corn and slugged our way back through the mud to the truck. As if God wanted us to end on a positive note, we drove out of the corn field and I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was an injured drake mallard trying to make an escape. We hopped out of the truck and made our way over to the field, a quick shot as he tried to fly to safety gave Sage one last chance to deliver. She healed perfectly, took the command and went splashing in to the deep red water. She delivered a beautiful drake to my hand and happily jumped back in her Gunner kennel.
The best part about this duck club was that it was only 20 min from where I grew up in Shawnee, OK. This allowed for a free place to crash in between hunts and easy childcare when my wife let me know leaving the kids at home to hunt would not be in my favor. What I did not now at the beginning of the season is that this would give me more time with my dad before his time came to an end. My last hunt of December was on a trip to 737 the week before Christmas where we would celebrate and exchange gifts with my parents and kids. Sage had gotten into something and was having frequent diarrhea so I was hosing out the kennel daily it seemed. Other than opening gifts with the kids, my list memory of my dad is the two of us laughing at Sage running through their front yard covered in diarrhea as I hosed out the kennel yet again. He helped me wrangle her and clean her off before we headed back home. We would talk a few more times in the next week, mostly about a book we were reading at the same time by Jack Carr, The Devil’s Hand. A few days after Christmas my brother called one evening to say that dad had just left the house in an ambulance and they had done CPR in the living room before heading to Oklahoma City. The next few weeks are a blur but most was spent on the road between the hospital, Shawnee and my home in Tulsa.
A good friend reached out after my dad had been in the hospital a few weeks and asked if I would like to come hunt on his ranch the next morning. I had already been on the road quite a bit and this would be another 4 hours of travel but promised to be a great flooded timber hunt. The scouting report was several days of wood ducks and mallards packing in this small honey hole so I decided to do something to take my mind off of what was happening in that hospital room.
My cousin picked me up a little after 3am and we made the 2-hour drive together in the dark. We avoided talking about what was going on other than to say not much had changed. We instead talked about our kids, our wives and details of other hunts that season that we had not been on together. We arrived to the barn as the other guys were pulling out in the quad. We quickly threw on our waders, grabbed our guns and blind bags and piled in. A 10-minute drive and we arrived at what seemed like an area just as dense as the rest of the forest. It took walking through a small trail to see where the tree canopy opened up just enough for the woodies to tumble in at first light.
We unloaded decoys and dogs and started to set up our spread, strategically positioning woody and mallard decoys along with a mix of motion decoys. Just as the scouting report had drawn it up, 5 min before shooting light came the first group of woodies. We watched them splash in, wave after wave, it was fun to watch. Once shooting light arrived, we took aim on the next group and the water below us exploded with birds exiting at the sound of guns. We had our limit in about an hour and headed back to the house to cook up a big country breakfast on the Blackstone griddle. A few of us cleaned birds while the others sorted gear, dogs and breakfast. It was a great morning and a great way to think about anything else, even if only for a few hours.
We took my dad off of life support a few days later and then Sage left for school a few weeks after that. Needless to say, the last part of the season wasn’t much to celebrate but I have a feeling that last hunt of the year will be one I remember for a long time. My dad was not a hunter but he enjoyed listening to my stories and giving the dogs a belly rub. I will certainly miss giving him the report as I pull in and his remarks about how much red mud I tracked into his driveway. Time spent afield and the friends you make there continue to be the best there are.
Hunt 2 Travel 