It was in the fall, I was 5, it was duck and goose season, and this was the first time I would get to shoot my own ducks or geese. Waterfowl hunting is a huge part of my life and always will be. I still remember the day when my dad came home from work and told me that we were going duck hunting in the morning. I was so excited to go, I had been hunting with my dad since I could walk, but I was not overly excited because my dad would do all the shooting and I would only get to watch. I was not in any way mad at him, because at least I got to go. Within the next hour I would become one of the few 5 year old duck hunters.

My dad, after getting off work, had picked up a .410 single shot shotgun from one of my relatives, and I came home from school to find a gun leaning up against the wall, and when I asked my dad whose gun that was he said, “Its yours to use in the morning.” You have no idea what kind of excitement that brought. I was a boy who all he wanted to do was to grow up fast enough so he could hunt with his dad. Hunting in my family is a huge part of our lifestyle, and is in some ways a tradition and a way of life. The gun symbolizes a sign that a boy is old enough to be like his dad. In the morning I would become just like my dad.

The morning of the duck hunt, it was Halloween, October 31st, 1995. It was a calm day, but a little bit chilly. I was dressed up in my hunting clothes: long johns, jeans, jacket, and my cowboy hat, not typical hunting clothes when you’re decoying waterfowl, but for jump shooting they were perfect. We had a black lab named Dandy that would go through a burning fire pit to retrieve our birds. She was one of those dogs that would work all day long if she had to, and was one of the best companions that a guy could have. We got out of the pickup just right as the sun just started to come out. We crossed a barbed wire fence and started our walk to where we would jump the mill ditch. As we approached the bank we would walk up, we could hear birds starting to wake up and talk to each other. As dad and I encountered the water, dad stopped me and told me to pick out a drake, which drakes are males. Male mallards are also know as Greenheads, or greenies. We crawled up the bank, and there was a greenhead with his head sticking up looking at me. When dad told me to shoot, I fired instantly. As I shot, birds scattered and dad fired at the birds, knocking three down. Dandy instantly went into retrieving the birds. She looked like a pro football running back going through the water. When Dandy retrieved the birds that dad had downed, my drake was no where to be found. Dad said that we would walk the bank and that Dandy would find it. We walked the whole creek looking for my first bird, and on the way back, sure enough Dandy jumped in the water and found the bird hiding out along the grass. When she brought back the bird I had shot, I held it up in accomplishment. When we got back to the pick- up, the bird sat on the floor mat in front of me on the way home and I couldn’t wait to get there.

I couldn’t wait to get back to town and tell everyone about the first bird I had ever shot. When we reached Prairie City, I had to instantly go home and call my friend Brandon and tell him. He came over and looked at what we had killed. My mom took a picture of me holding the duck up, and to this day I still have the picture.

              Waterfowl hunting, and hunting in general, is a sport that teaches you a life time worth of skills, and I still hunt all the time. Hunting for me relieves stress, provides food, and enjoying the beauty of nature. I have seen many beautiful things while in nature. For example, during elk season at 11,000 feet, the air is so pure, snow is on the ground and family are all standing around a pitch stump that we had that we have lit on fire. Waterfowl hunting I can see so many shooting stars, birds working decoy spreads, my dog working his hardest to retrieve a bird, experiencing the smell of gun powder, and the bonding with my dad over coffee in the early morning before shooting light. I have no idea what kind of man I would have become if not for hunting, and I thank god everyday that my dad introduced me to the world of hunting.