LAST EDITED ON Jul-22-17 AT 12:15PM (MST)[p]You know I have soft spot for sculling analogies Eel.
This election from the primaries to today.
A little Johnny on the radio and the coffee is good as you watch the first glimmer of morning light hit the last of the night sky. Wind and weather are good, but so is the Striper fishing, and there are 20 rigs at the launch.
5 runs at the big flocks in the middle, but the birds are jumpy and every time they settle down another boat runs though them. Oh well, at least the ol lady packed a great lunch.
It's 3pm, the oar has seen a lot of action but you still haven't fired a shot. Out of the corner of your eye some 500 yds to your left in the back of a cove you see a flicker of white.
You put down the Christian Bros and pick up the glasses. More than likely mallards but you just can't tell. What the hell you got a little more time so you get 100 yds closer start glassing and sure enough you see hen mallard pop out of the back.
It's not a deep cove so you figure you'll run down shore past the point a 100 yds, hug the shoreline, come around the point and you should be good.
One last look around, good, not a fishing boat for 1,000 yards. Slip the oar in and you head around the point. You see 2 hens and a drake a few feet of shore at 50 yds. One hen stays out, but the pair go to shore and disappear into some windblown tumbleweeds.
At 35 yds the hen starts doing the sidways shuffle and breaks, you want that drake, so you wait a few seconds and then the pair break. You sit up and swing the bead on the drake, miss him with the first shot (under) but stone him on the second. At 65 yds out you swing on the hen but hold back, too far, sigh, oh well, it's time to call it a day.
You set down your gun, pull off your hat, scratch your head and think to yourself, well..it wasn't a total loss at least I pulled one Greenhead out of an otherwise crappy day. As you reach down and pluck him from the water you quickly discover he's a razor chest. You pull a tuft of breast feathers out and his dry skin is red with an underlying tone of green hues.
As you gaze through a dirty windshield on the ride home, sports radio buzzing in the background, the sun setting over hills you think, man why did I have to get fancy I should have just taken the first hen and then tried for the hen and drake? Then you chuckle to yourself, smile, and think chit that's just huntin at least some coyote will eat tonight.
As you come through the door you hear that angelic voice like a hundred times before ask, "How was it babe, did ya get em?" A quick half hug and a kiss on the cheek you shake your head, grab a beer out of the fridge, pull out a chair from the kitchen table and plop yourself down.
You give out a one word reply after a long sigh..skunked! Your wife tells you she has steaks on the BBQ and dinner will be ready in 10 minutes. You think to yourself, I am the luckiest SOB in the world.
