Hunting: From One Generation to the Next

(Part 2 of 2)

“Hurry, dad, before the sun comes up!”

After assuaging his fear of being late to his very first day out hunting, Michael–my son–obliged my request to get some breakfast down before heading out.  One banana later and our day had begun.

A drive that once took well over an hour was cut in half due to the completed construction of toll roads on the North-side of Austin.  Before we knew it, we had arrived at our happy hunting grounds.

We pulled up to the front gate about fifteen minutes before we were set to meet Nick, my long-time friend and hunting buddy. That was plenty of time to get Michael’s bird-vest on and set up my Mojo dove decoy.  Right around the time we finished with that, Nick’s truck pulled up behind us. He jumped out with that familiar SO-glad-to-be-up-this-early look on his face.  When I hollered, “top of the morning to ya, goovnah,” he just shook his head.  We pulled the trucks inside the fence and completed our final preparations.

Michael and I decided to set up along a fence line that was overrun with cedars, while Nick wandered off out of sight.  Dove enjoy flying along fence-lines, and this particular fence had no shortage of cover.  After setting our buckets down, I found an ideal spot for my decoy.  I staked the Mojo into the ground and–just after I returned to my bucket sitting no more than 50 feet away–I turned to see a dove readying to land near the decoy.  At the last moment, it hesitated and pulled away.  Nonetheless, I thought to myself, “the Mojo really works!”

About fifteen minutes later, it was light enough to legally start shooting.  We sat on our buckets and watched the sun rise over the horizon.  There weren’t many birds directly above us, but it sounded like World War III on the far side of the pond.  The land-owner’s son-in-law was putting his new Benelli through the ringer.  Each bird that flew even remotely close to this guy way chased off with a rapid succession of BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! … I guess he was never informed that you’re not obligated to unload your gun at every possible opportunity.  The way this guy was shooting, you’d think he was trying to bring down a squadron of B-52s.

The hunting was slow that morning; Michael sat quietly (and, considering his soaked boots, as patiently as possible) without one complaint.  Finally, I saw a bird flying right along the fence-line towards us from about 60 yards away. I told Michael, “this one is yours.”  He raised the 870 to his shoulder, clicked off the safety, and he fired.  The bird gave a little dip of the wing and flew away unscathed.  I glanced at him, and I could already see the tears welling up.  “It’s okay, I missed my first dove too.  You’ll get the next one–I’m sure of it.”  Mere moments later, another bird (following the exact same pattern as the last) approached us.  “Here it comes!”  Michael stood up off his bucket, raised the gun to his shoulder and… wammo!  When the ringing in my ear stopped, I heard Michael shout, “I got him!”  He ran over and held up the bird, grinning. and announced, “found him!”

After a quick photo, I looked to him and said, “Good.  Now you get to learn how to clean it.”  Even that revelation couldn’t wipe the smile from his face.