Where We Hunt Them

A lesson on the duck hunter’s lifecycle, the sanctity of a duck blind, and checking in on your friends.

At some point in my life, I found it fashionable to tell anyone who would ask, “No, I don’t do teal season.” 

I’d rattle off a list of excuses like a third grader recites the pledge of allegiance. 

”Too hot. I spend all day in the heat at work, I don’t need to do it on the weekend.”

“Too many mosquitoes. Not interested in donating blood to that cause.”

“Too many gators, not enough teal. Don’t want to lose what few birds I’ll kill to the cajun taxman.”

I’m a blue-collar plant worker at a chemical plant along the Mississippi River. My funds are limited. My vacation time is even more limited. The truth is, I didn’t have money to shell out for a pit blind in a rice field. I never found enough teal on public land to turn my focus away from the impending “big duck” season, either. It just hasn’t been in the cards for me.

I’m 31, now. I’ve held most of my closest friendships for a decade or more now, and many of them were either forged or honed in a duck blind. Almost all of those friendships aren’t tended to like they were in my adolescence. 

Friends old and new, Chase Cook (left) and Ashton Kennedy (right) have spent the last few seasons hunting wood ducks with the author in south Louisiana. I’ve known Chase for nearly half my life and never thought I would meet another person quite as odd as he until I met Ashton. Photo by Ryne Berthelot

And many of those friends aren’t doing great, right now. Some are unlucky in love, others in finance. One watched his entire life change after a fall from a ladder at work. I feel undeserving to say that I’m doing well after crossing the threshold of 30. I also feel extremely grateful that these men lean on me in their time of need, however that may be; I know they would do the same if our roles were reversed. 

One of them is an avid outdoorsman, while the other dabbles. The third is a former outdoorsman who appreciated the sport of waterfowling long before we met. I’ve never known him to be a waterfowler in adulthood. Still, I’ve spent plenty of time hunting with two of the three, and the third has experienced his own duck blind baptism.

For the two hunters, it feels like this teal season couldn’t be more important. It’s an opportunity to hang up their troubles for a few hours, if they choose. Or it’s a time to face them head on, with a clarity only the tranquility of nature can provide. The duck blind is a perfect place for both. Those with a weathered spirit need not bother with churches, bars or other vices. They simply need a few hours in the morning to kill time, mosquitoes, and perhaps a bird or two. 

I’ve always seen a duck blind as a sanctuary, a version of the safe spaces that have cropped up on college campuses. It’s an early-morning confessional, if the inhabitants so choose for it to be. It can be a dining room, filled with two-dollar Twinkies, Slim Jims, scrambled eggs and energy drinks. It’s a place for people to join in a common cause, so long as they respect the game being harvested. 

I can’t rightly say that anything good will come from this teal season. I can’t say my friends will be healed of their hindrances, nor can I say they’ll come home with a limit of birds. I can’t even promise they’ll enjoy themselves in the process. 

I can, however, try. 

I’ve always acknowledged a duck hunter’s career as a life cycle, from infancy to maturity to old age. We become more interested in certain facets of duck hunting throughout that lifestyle. For instance, a young man will do whatever it takes to fill his limit of birds, while an older man may be at peace shooting fewer birds on an easier hunt. Some may tire of shooting wood ducks in their teenage years and dream of shooting mallards and pintails and the like. They may be content to revisit those old wood duck haunts years later, and rekindle a long-lost love for a bird that is greatly underappreciated in our sport. 

One of the author’s most treasured hunting memories come every year on Christmas, where he’s accompanied by his old high school friends Brennan Shirey (left) and Chase Cook (center) on a wood duck shoot at one of the ponds on Chase’s horse ranch. This just so happened to be the first greenwinged teal ever harvested on the pond, the only bird in the bag that morning. Photo by Ryne Berthelot

It feels to me like I’m growing, and you, dear reader, are here to witness it. For the last several years, I’ve traveled across the United States, hunting ducks wherever I could find them. My hunts took me to fantastic places that you can read about on this blog. I traveled to many of them alone, something that I reveled in at the time. There’s a satisfaction to hunting alone sometimes, a topic I may one day address here.

For now, though, I think I’ll set that phase aside, at the very least. It’s important to share these memories with people, instead of hoarding them all to myself. We’re only given so many sunrises on this earth. I need to spend more of those with the people I love.

I believe I’ll do that the best way I know: In a duck blind.