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Where are all the ducks? OUTDOORS Outdoors Editor Duck season opens Saturday and anticipation isn't running high in the Meyer duck camp. Nobody has seen many ducks in recent weeks and reports that the statewide mallard population is at its lowest levels in 23 years hasn't exactly thrown fuel on the fire.
I called my cousin a few weeks ago to firm up plans for Saturday and he had to be reminded that Sept. 30 was the opener. Twenty years ago he would have circled that date on the calendar back in June.
During our phone conversation he told me the diehards in our party - a core group surrounded by a loose confederation of cousins, friends and neighbors who came and went with the seasons - were finding reasons not to hunt this year.
One is on a business trip and won't get back until late Friday night (sleeping in on the opener!) Another has yard work he needs to do (yard work!) A third is escorting his wife to a wedding (a wedding on the opener!) Yet another is drawing unemployment checks and can't afford the price of steel ammunition.
Now there's an excuse I can buy.
This is sad. Twenty years ago we drove all night from faraway places to be in Agram Township in time for the opener. We ditched the yard work, left wives and girlfriends unescorted at social events and dug the change from between the seats of the truck to buy a box of ammo, all in the name of duck hunting.
But several poor duck seasons in succession have taken their toll on the crew's enthusiasm. We once lived to hunt ducks. Now we live to hunt other game, mostly deer, though turkey fever is on the rise with the growing local population.
But I'll dig the camo out of storage Friday night and be hunkered down with the dog in a swamp somewhere Saturday morning. Unlike the dogs of my boyhood, Buck might never live to be totally drained from a day of retrieving ducks, but with any luck I can knock down a few birds so he can run around in the cattails for a while.
It'll be interesting to see who else shows up, how many of us will still be in the field at closing time Saturday and how many will make it back for the sunrise hunt Sunday. Those who do might be pleasantly surprised. The great wild rice crop bodes well for duck hunting. Maybe the birds we think aren't around are hidden in thick stands of rice and will take to the skies en masse when the guns start booming Saturday morning.
A couple weeks ago I talked to Mike Burton, former senior director of development for Ducks Unlimited, who has moved on to other ventures. I asked if he would be hunting on the opener.
"I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world," Burton said. "It's one of Minnesota's greatest traditions, one of our great connections to the water and the air. My duck hunt is partly about tradition and partly about staying in tune with the environment in Minnesota."
There, I knew there was a reason to be in the swamp Saturday morning. Here's hoping you find a good reason too.
VINCE MEYER, outdoors editor, can be reached at vince.meyer@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5862.
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