Blind Banter

Unlike Turkey or deer hunting, where being still and quiet is paramount, duck and goose hunting affords the hunters a chance to talk. Once you are set up in the blind, once the decoy spread is just so, once the guns are loaded and ready, once the dogs are settled, you wait. You wait for the honk of geese or the dark shape zipping by that is a group of mallards circling for a look. At those moments the only words you want to hear are "Take 'em."

But in the interludes, you can talk. You have a couple of hours in the blind with your son or your buddies. Talk ranges from politics to ribald jokes to child rearing and hunting stories. You talk about books and movies and game recipes; you talk about dog training and marital issues(perhaps the similarities of same) and you talk about sports and upcoming hunts and maybe even work. In this era of smart phones and Blackberries and text and tweets and other electric connective artificial urgency and static, it is a treat to be in the blind in the outdoors where the sounds eminate  fom nature and from the hushed offering of your blind mates. The quiet talk in the blind is comfortable and genuine. It is the talk of sportsmen and fathers and sons and friends. These exchanges are part of the memory and the enjoyment of hunting as much as the sweet crossing shot at thirty yards on a wood duck or the two geese you drop with two shots when a group of 5 has their gear down and is dropping into the spread.