Words that Make Your Stomach Drop

It's the fastest way to turn the most unlikely success on a hunt into a churning defeat.

The Unlikeliest of Unlikelies had just happened when my friend Sage uttered the words that made my stomach drop.

We were hunting on the third hunt day of duck season, when ducks are getting wise to things, on a popular piece of public land. I’d been there all day, arriving at 4:15 a.m., finally getting in around 10, setting up in a really difficult spot, seeing no ducks, abandoning said spot, then - already exhausted from trudging miles through water, grass and tules - meeting Sage around 2:30 p.m. and setting out at another location.

We jumped a few ducks on our walk in, and shortly after we set decoys and tucked seats into tules, I killed one duck. The area had promise, but we weren’t exactly where we needed to be: a little off the flight path and not quite where birds wanted to land. Someone 100 yards from us was shooting a lot, but not dropping much that we could see. We decided to split up and walk around in search of ducks to jump, or at least more promising spots for future hunts.

I got back to our base with just a few minutes of shoot time left. Nothing ever happens in these few minutes, I told Sage, who is a new hunter, as I grabbed my decoys and brought them back to my seat.

That’s when a flock of honkers flew over the Other Guy.

Honkers are notoriously hard to kill at this refuge. They're all locals that are familiar with the ways of the Hairless Monkeys with Firesticks.

Other Guy dropped one.

Whoa! Good on him! Bummer they didn’t make it to us.

They headed our way. There was no way they'd stay low enough or fly over us.

But they did, flying in range just behind us.

We both shot, each tumbling one. Sage's fell on the left, with at the very least a broken wing. Mine cartwheeled down on the right on my second shot, hopefully DOA. They fell not far behind us, maybe 15 yards.

Unbelievable fortune! Dear Editor, you won’t believe what happened to me last weekend!

We each rushed out on opposite sides of our hiding place to get our birds. That's when Sage said it.

“Holly, how do you find them in stuff like this?”

Oh no oh no oh no. I was about five seconds behind him in discovering that the tule bank that backed our hide was much bigger than we’d realized. The the geese had fallen right in it, and the sun's rays were about to be snuffed out by the horizon.

I told him geese trying to get away are very obvious because they’re so big. But they weren’t on the water. There was no splashing in open water, no violent shaking of tules as a bird the size of a zeppelin tried to weave into them.

There was no doubt about it: They were in the thick stuff.

We each waded into it from our respective sides. Moving was difficult. So much vegetation would build up in front of my (already taxed) legs that my feet would get locked into place. Dust and pollen poured off of tules and dried hemlock that stood a foot taller than us, scrambling our bearings. Vegetation repeatedly tore my hat and glasses askew.

The geese weren’t moving, so we were going to have to stumble on them. And it was growing darker by the minute.

I didn’t want to say it out loud, but I knew there was a very real possibility that these two giant birds were going to become coyote food. Yeah, coyotes gotta eat, but I don’t inflict pain and death on birds only for them to suffer and/or become someone else's dinner. This loss was not the experience I wanted for Sage.

Exhausted, I pushed back to open water, back to our hide, to replay the scene. I felt like I’d crisscrossed the entire tule patch, but with my bearings refreshed, I went back in, looking for places where I hadn’t left a trail through tules and hemlock.

I came to a tiny open area on a small island - a few square feet occupied by something green, scrubby and low. At the edge of the green, I caught a smudge of grays and blacks, muted by fading light.

My bird!

Stone dead. That explained the unhelpful silence. I picked it up, marveling at the heft. I’ve killed only two large Canada geese in California. I know it's the dominant goose in most of the country, but not here.

“Sage! I found mine! Come here!”

He battled to get close to me so I could show him the spot, and together we triangulated: If mine was here, his had to have fallen no more than 10 yards south of there. We pushed in that direction on parallel tracks.

“I smell goose here,” he said from somewhere in the tangle.

“Trust yourself!” I replied.

And a few minutes later: “I found it!”

Back on open water, we shared an awed congratulatory hug, then scrambled pack up and find our way back to our cars in the dark. Exhausted. Jubilant.

The dark walk back to our cars. (Photo by Sage Marshall)

Dropping those geese in the first place was the Unlikeliest of Unlikelies. Finding them in that mess was ten times the fortune, a huge relief, a reward for persistence.

It was a day we'll never forget, and a moment likely to make that day one of my favorite hunts of the season.

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Now, I know what's coming because I’ve already heard it a million times. Holly, why don’t you get a dog? Or my favorite variation, Grawr grawr grgggh you have no business hunting ducks without a dog!

I don’t have a dog for a lot of reasons, primarily expense and the reasonable fear of getting one that's either not very good, or worse, getting one that mangles birds, which is a big no-no in our house. We don’t hunt to make jerky and burgers. If you want to hunt with a dog, fine. Your money, your time, your choice.

My mistake on this hunt wasn’t the absence of a dog; it was not being more aware of my surroundings. When you hunt without a dog, there are some shots you don’t take because of the risk of losing birds. I wouldn't hunt that exact location again because those honkers aren’t the only birds that flew just behind us - it’s apparently a popular flight path, and a terrible place to drop a bird.

Mistakes happen. I'm human. So I focus on working my ass off to find my birds. I’m pretty damn good at it. And the extra bit of work makes success all that much sweeter.