My New Hunting Buddy

By Kris Verness
29 December 2009

I would like to share the story of my daughter's first hunt. Hailey is five years old now and since she joined our family, she has been exposed to decoys, dead ducks and geese in the garage, and the constant sound of duck and goose calls. Just recently she started asking me why I love to hunt ducks and geese so much. I explained that I couldn't tell her, but had to show her instead. Her eyes lit up like Christmas morning at thought of going hunting with daddy. We kept our plans quiet, because her younger brother Logan, at the age of three, wouldn't be joining us on the hunt. She kept quiet around Logan but when she came out to the garage to help daddy load the boat her little mouth was moving as fast as teal screaming thru the decoys. I could tell she was excited and ready to go, but I was feeling a little nervous. I thought, what if she hates it, gets too cold, or we don't see any birds and she never wants to go again? The weather channel was calling for a low of 16 degrees for the Fallon area in the morning, so I loaded a small heater in the boat and every piece of warm clothing I could find. Everything was loaded and we were ready to roll in the morning.

4am came fast and I went to Hailey's room to wake her up. On a school day she'll stay in bed until 8:00, so I did not think she would be easy to wake up. I was wrong! As soon as I opened her door and turned on the light she jumped up and was ready to go. We had a quick bite to eat, then loaded up in the truck and were headed for the Carson Lake Pasture. Right around a 5:45am we pulled up to the boat launch. After bundiling Hailey up in every piece of cold weather gear she has, we put the boat in the water and headed off for our spot. The weather prediction was correct, and a 16 degree temp made for a pretty chilly boat ride, but she handled it like a champ. We didn't see a lot of birds on our way out, so I wasn't the most confident hunter in the marsh. After setting decoys and setting up the boat in the cattails we were ready to hunt. I had the little heater going, with Hailey huddled right in front of it warming her hands when three teal came right in. One pull of the trigger and we had our first duck of the day. A Cinnamon teal drake and he looked perfect! We were both pretty excited jumping around and high fiven. Next, was a drake Gadwall that went down with a splash. Hailey was lovin' it! She kept saying "shoot another one, come on, come on!" After a short pause in the action I saw a group of 18-20 Mallards working our way. I told Hailey, "Get down! Here comes some big ducks." I pulled two drakes out of the bunch. We were screaming YAHOO across the water when those birds went down! It was time for a snack. I pulled out left over Halloween candy and every other piece of junk food mommy wouldn't normally let her have, but this was our special time and deserved some good snacks. It was hard to eat my salami and cheese with all the cattails breaking open and blowing my way. I turned around to see Hailey shaking the cattails with a big smile on her face. She said, "Look daddy, magic fairy dust." It didn't take long for some more ducks to work in. Two more shots and we had two scaup feet up in the decoys. We were just one bird away from our seven. A large group of teal came our way and down went another drake Cinnamon. We started with a Cinnamon and finished with a Cinnamon. I told Hailey I would have these two birds put on the wall because of the special hunt we had.

The boat ride back to the truck was a blast. Hailey sat with pride at the front of the boat with our birds lined up beneath her. She was sure to show them off at the ramp when we got back. At the ramp, she was dressed in a pink snow suit holding up ducks from her first trip. As soon as we were loaded in the truck she fell asleep and didn't wake up the whole way home. I later asked her if she had fun hunting ducks--she said she can't wait to go again. Looks like I have a new hunting buddy!!

Remember to take a kid hunting and good luck on your next hunt!
-Kris Verness