Well.
5 am came and i gave a knock on Dad's door and prayed the baby (my little boy) in the next room wouldn't wake up crying and the cats and dog and my wife and the whole town wake up. By the time i have the coffee going, he's downstairs.
0540
Stopping at tim's for our second hits of Java and attempt ordering the BELT which was probably the most difficult job of the day!
0615
We're just arriving, there's geese flying and we're a bit late
DAd puts on some of my gear, rolling up the legs cause they're too long
and we are off.
It's a beautiful morning, 7 C and the sun rising as we head to the water
There's a few geese coming in the valley, and we get down and wait with little cover
At about 200 yrds the geese flare off, and we continue on to the water's edge. We get in the cattails, where i am sure I'll lose Dad cause he's pretty short. We see a good many ducks and Dad gives me the sign to come over to where he is. The typical Newfoundland duck hunter he is, he says, "we'll get on our bellies and crawl over to the little outcrop. IT WAS ABOUT 300 yrds, and next thing I looked and he was gone like a snake. I quickly got down and passed him and he was tailing me. When we got to the spot, he said , "sure how are you gonna shoot?" I said , 'What do you mean?
He laughed and passed me about 12 shells I lost crawling ahead of him.
We decided we'd jump up and when they battered we'd open fire.
He fired 3 from the semi like lightning, and me (a semi user, with a pump for this hunt) got off one shot and kept pulling the trigger with nothing happening.
Pump the thing, Dad shouts!
Once I was functioning, I made one hell of a long shot, 45 yrds, 3 ducks down, one single shot. Dad couldn't believe it (I couldn't believe it more than him)
With floatin Jigger and hip waders we rounded up the birds, and had another 5 or 6 good shooting sprees.
Here's Dad with a limit of teals
Now after all this,
a funny thing happened. Dad is an upland hunter through and through. Ducks are nice, but upland is the ticket for him, with setters usually. Back home there have not been many partridge the last few tyears and when our last setters passed on, we never replaced them, and Dad has only been out occasionally is the last 5 years.
So we are on our way to try some geese after the limits on ducks. Dad is, hmmm, welll,, not really into the "new" 3.5 inchers and the roboducks and such, but does give it all whirl. We were driving along a ield and 5 grouse flew. Well Dads eyes lit like Christmas lights.
"Get me the gun! one probably hung on around there somewhere"
He jumps out, puts in one 3 inch magnum #4 steel. I said "put in the rest!"
He said, "If I can see him, I only need one" Now you have to know Dad. That is his humouress way of saying, "watch how it's done" I laughed at him and he smiled. I said you're gonna tear it to #### with that shell if ya do hit it. He said "I'll aim for the head" and smiled again as I laughed again. Then he was off.
This is how it always happens when he makes his claims, homouress or not, ... be it fluke or sjkill I end up eating my doubts. The bird was hit with five beads, all in the neck, and one in the beak. I picked up the bird and pulled offa few tufts of featers, Dad says , 'See, I shot him in the head" I started laughing, and then he said, "you got a few tricks to learn yet"
It was a great day, and Dad was pleased with his "shot on Video"
He now looks at it and says,"See I swung to the right and I shoot right, so that was difficult enough to spin around, and then, when he was flying, he stuck his head up to look and then I shot him in the head. I tried to get him with about 10 pelletes, how many was it I hit him with?" !!
TOO FUNNY !
