It was at this time he knew, he screwed up.

I wasn’t sure how to start this post, so I am going to try something new. “And he said to all: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Luke 9:23. This is something I struggle with from time to time and this is one of those instants. 

South Dakota non-resident waterfowl licenses are not the easiest thing to obtain. If you are not a resident you have to apply for a lottery drawing with several options for different zones (areas of the state) you can hunt and how many days. Well, my father (and I) have had some interesting times figuring this whole process out. One year we screwed up and he never actually got his application in, and one year we got it in but he didn’t get drawn. We figured out when this happens you can get a preference point which helped him draw a good license last year. But this year, we knew the chances of him getting drawn two years in a row for this license wasn’t great. A friend of mine and I the past couple of years have figured out there are a few licenses that are a lot less applied for, we have made some trips to one of these areas so we could do more hunting together. So this year, my dad put one of these licenses as his second choice. Sure enough when he didn’t get drawn for the statewide license, he did get drawn for this license, which provided us with a three day window to hunt together. This is very significant for me, as hunting with my dad means A LOT and because of this, I got set on figuring out a trip pretty quickly to make this happen.  

We found all this out in July, and I got to booking a place to stay in this area right away. It was a place we stayed at two years ago and really enjoyed. Because it is located in a popular pheasant hunting area, it was already booked for the whole first part of pheasant season, so we adapted and booked a little earlier than I would have liked, but it allowed us to stay at the place we really wanted to. I had another friend get drawn for a license, the statewide one, and I reached out to him to see if he wanted to join us on this trip. It didn’t take him long to let us know he was in. Funny thing, he is actually from the area we were going to hunt. Here is where it gets tricky, part of my dad’s license is that you can’t hunt on land that is open to the public, private land only. To mitigate this I, not really thinking, booked a 5 day 4 night adventure in order to have time to get to the area, scout and find a place to hunt and get two hunts in. 

As has kind of been happening to me these past few years, this trip kind of snuck up on me. It wasn’t long until Oct. was here and the week before we were set to leave showed up. Caleb and I scrambled to get our stuff ready, it has been quite the pleasure to have a kid that is old enough, and enjoys doing these things with me, something that is still new to me. We got the old family vehicle which has been turned into the “adventure mobile”, all serviced and filled with gas the day before we left and we were ready to go.

Ready to roll

Because we drive a little less than an hour for Sunday morning Mass, and in this case the right direction, I chose to leave Sunday morning right after Mass. When Sunday morning came, I got up a little earlier than normal to pack the cooler before getting in the shower. Dan also woke up earlier than normal, and joined me for this and it was actually quite fun to have him help out. It wasn’t until the drive to Mass where the weight of this trip really hit me. Caleb and I were going to be gone until Thursday. I am normally a bit excited/nervous but the anxiety I felt on this drive was more than those normal nerves. 

High Mass was amazing, and actually calmed me quite a bit. After chatting with our friends, getting changed, and then saying good bye to the rest of the family, Caleb and I were headed off to go hunt. For almost a full week. We made the drive there in great time and met up with my dad (called Pa by all my kids) and my friend. It was awesome to see both of them. I asked for an early check in and got it so we headed to our VRBO, got unloaded and settled in. 

Because we have hunted in this area the last two years, I kind of knew where to start scouting. We took off and began to look for ducks and geese. It didn’t take long. The first big pocket of water we hit seemed to be holding a good number of both ducks and geese. We scanned the pond with our binos to look at all the different kinds of ducks. From there we found a way to figure out a flight line for all these birds. It happened that a field I hunted two years ago with a friend was in the area. We stopped by the farmer, with high hopes of getting permission to hunt that field. And then something kind of funny happened. We got permission to hunt there, BUT only for ducks. We couldn’t shoot geese, and because of how wet the field was, we were told no driving in. I told the guys, I had a feeling this will actually help us because it will push us to find a better spot yet. From there we drove in a direction that brought less birds and got me a little turned around. We circled back around to basically where we started and when another farmer we wanted to ask for permission from wasn’t home we went back for the night. 

The next morning we were greeted by beautiful weather. We slept in just a bit, but as the sun was coming up, we were off to find some ducks. We started at the field we had permission for, just to see if any birds were using it to feed in the morning. As it turned out, there really wasn’t, and as I thought, not settling for that first spot we found turned out to be a blessing. From there we decided to venture in a bit of a new direction and go a little further west. This turned out to be the best decision we could have made. A couple miles down, we found a pond almost right off the main road loaded with ducks and geese. We pulled over to take a glance and take it all in. I looked up where the landowner was located and it was just down the road. It was a little too early in the morning to go knocking on doors, so I put a pin on the location to come back later. From there we kind of putzed around more in this area, seeing tons of pheasants, and after circling back around a little we saw some geese. As luck would have it, the two fields that the geese were using were the same landowner of the pond we were looking at earlier in the morning. We went down and found the house of the landowner but no one was home. I then spent some time writing a note to leave on the front door, explaining the situation. On the way back down the road leaving a car came the other direction and being that the only two houses down this road were the same family, I turned back around and followed. I then was able to knock on the door and ask for permission. This ended up working well, after explaining what we were doing and how long we were going to be in the area, we ended up getting permission for all three spots thanks to a very generous landowner. On the drive back down the road I told all the guys to plug their ears, and let out a little yell of excitement. 

With all the “pressure” off, we headed back in high spirits to plan out what to do next. After fueling up with some food, we decided that because the weather was so nice we could go out in the field in the early afternoon and find a good spot to hide and even stubble in the blinds. Making tomorrow morning that much easier. We made the drive out to a bean field that had geese using it this morning and was surrounded by pothole ponds. We found a couple of low spots with longer grass in and finally decided on which one to hide in for tomorrow morning. We got out the two a-frame blinds, a rake, and a sled. We got to work in our t-shirts enjoying the nice sunny day. It was at this point, things kind of went sideways on me. I got one of those calls that you never want to get. Kristin informed me that Dan’s strange behavior in the morning finally made itself known as he wasn’t feeling very well anymore. Now, I know she wouldn’t really make a call like this if it was something like a mild cold, so I knew he really wasn’t doing great. Then what happened was a rush of thoughts in my mind. I know how hard it can be with a sick kid (at night especially) and then having to go through that by yourself, with 4 other kids home with you to still take care of, one being a 10 month old who still wakes frequently

She informed me that for now, she had things under control, but I told her to just say go, and Caleb and I would head for home. Setting up the rest of the afternoon, I feel like I pinned the reason for the more anxiety I had when leaving on Sunday. At this point, we had only been gone for a day and one night. We still had two more full days, and three more nights of being gone. Thinking more about how much time we needed to make the trip successful and not enough about what I was leaving behind for that long. And a little bit of regret came in. Kristin gave me a pep talk, despite dealing with what she was, to just say you are up there now so make the most of it. 

After getting the blind positioned, and fully stubbled, we found out that we could not get everything back into the Yukon to go back. So my friend and I left Caleb and Pa to hang out, while we went back and got the other truck to get it all back in. Right before we left, I got an update phone call, and after some care to spare all the details here, Dan was starting to feel at least a little better and things seemed to be looking up. We got everything loaded up once we got the other truck back to the hunting spot, and then headed back to the lodge. We then spent some time getting everything ready for the morning’s hunt before settling in and playing cards. That night Kristin and I had a longer conversation, Dan was still improving, but I knew that at night things would be more difficult. She was still providing him care on a regular basis and would keep on doing it through the night. I informed her that I had put my phone alerts on as high volume as it gets, and that no matter what time it was, we could be on the road pretty quickly if she needed us to. Even though it seemed like things were only still getting better. That night, sleep was hard for me to come by. My thoughts about what was going on at home and worrying that I would miss a phone call, combined with the excitement of the hunt in the morning, even though it seemed like it was days away made quite an interesting mix of emotions. I was happy Caleb fell asleep while I was praying the rosary, of which I added in the extra set of Sorrowful Mysterious for my son and wife, and that their night would be as uneventful as possible. 

Blinds ready to go for the next day

All of a sudden I woke up to stirring in the house, and I realized that at some point I did fall asleep and my alarm was just about to go off. I had 0 notifications from home, which I knew was a good thing. I woke up Caleb and we had that pre-hunt excitement kick in, and with all the hard work we had done the afternoon before, it came along with a more confident feeling in what we were doing that morning. We found the spot in the dark, and got everything set up really quickly. We were ready to go, trucks parked and settled into the blind 10 minutes or so before shooting time. Not much after we all got hunkered down, a hen mallard came right in and landed in our decoys. We struggled to watch her in the dark, and try to figure out if she would stay until shooting time. I think she did, but not much after shooting time the ducks were really moving. We had a couple of mallards do a fly by, and then a big flock of pintails do it right. We all shot into the group, and not one bird dropped. This was pretty funny. Then I got one of those messages you liked to get, Kristin texted me letting me know the night went well and Eli has been a champ helping out. The relief it brought me was amazing. I responded with Deo Gratias, and let her know we all just missed on a big group of pintails, which gave her a good laugh. 

This was kind of a big deal, because in my many years of duck hunting one duck that alluded me is a drake pintail. It had kind of become a quest of mine, and now Caleb and Eli’s, since moving out to South Dakota to get one.

The action was pretty heavy on that morning's hunt as ducks were moving everywhere. It wasn’t long before I sent Kristin a picture of our first duck of the trip. A nice big greenhead. And then it happened. Another smaller flock of pintails came into our decoys with one drake in particular, that was about as colored up as I had ever seen this far north. My friend and I managed to get 2 out of that flock, including the nice drake. When I sent the picture of Caleb holding it to Kristin, as we were fairly certain I got it, a new emotion was about to take place. After an enthusiastic congratulations text she let me know that Eli was pretty disappointed she wasn’t there for it. 

I am going to side track now. Eli didn’t come on this trip, as she is not yet a big fan of driving as much as we were driving on this trip. She regularly lets Caleb and I go scouting down here for spots, and because of this I didn’t want to push her too far and have her end up not enjoying hunting. She didn’t give any protest to this idea, so I let it go without further discussion. 

The rest of the morning brought quite a bit of more opportunities for us, but poor shooting kind of took over the blind. I think it was because of the angle we set the blind, compared to the decoys, and that it made for a more of an overhead shot instead of a straight on shot because we were shooting up a hill. My dad and I were both getting frustrated a little, but thankfully my friend had a little better luck getting a couple more mallards.

Then something fun happened. A flock of geese (about 20) headed our direction. They short stopped us, landing about 200 yards short of our decoys. Caleb was getting a little antsy, and he convinced me, even though I informed him of the very low chances of success, that we should try and sneak over the hill on them. We grabbed a couple of our silhouette decoys, and snuck over the hill and then got down as low as we could and put the decoys in front of our faces. We got a little over half way when the geese figured out what was going on. They took off, but they flew out on a line that ended up being right over our blind. My dad and friend decided this was about as good of a chance as they were going to get, so they tried to get a couple. Well my dad on the last shot, connected and dropped a goose. It sailed a bit with the wind as it went down before landing on the edge of a field. Caleb and I set off to retrieve it. When we got to the spot it went down, there was no goose to be found. I told Caleb it was running and we searched for any sign of it. I finally came across some feathers, and then some more on a trail into the cattails going into one of the sloughs in the field. I didn’t get too far into the cattails when I saw it running in front of me. I yelled at Caleb (who had his earmuffs on) to get behind me, so that in the worst case scenario I could chase him out of the cattails and then use my shotgun to finish him if we needed to. Well it turned out, I didn’t have to chase too much. I caught up quickly and got him. When I grabbed him, I held him high for Caleb to see with a little adrenaline pumping. My excitement was met by Caleb’s, as we both shouted at the same time, “it's got a band!”.

We got back to the blind to share the good news combined with a text back home. After some more excitement from home I was then informed that Eli was fighting tears of disappointment on not being there for this one as well. I then realized that I screwed up here. I should have pushed her a little. There was no reason she couldn’t have come. 

The rest of the morning we managed to decoy one more goose, which my dad managed to harvest. We got everything packed up, and then took some pictures after looking around that area to try and find a spot to hunt tomorrow morning (other sloughs and low spots in the same field). We had definitely seen enough ducks, but they were seeing something they didn’t like. We managed to make it a fun hunt, but it didn’t pan out quite as good as it could have. 

I tried to convince them to hunt this dinky little sheet water spot, right next to a larger pond that a lot of ducks were piling into this morning. The rest of the group was not super convinced. On the way home we stopped by the pond we had found Monday morning. It was a larger pond and I thought it would be tough to hunt. Especially with Caleb because he can’t wade out into cattails in water. When we got there what we saw was almost unbelievable. The ducks were stacked in there. We decided it was mid afternoon and kicking them out would most likely just send them to another one of the many ponds in the area. So we set off, looking for a spot to hunt the next day. We ended up kicking so many ducks out of this little runoff of the bigger pond that we found out we could hunt, but the biggest thing would be hiding in the smaller cattails. We found a spot we thought would work, and headed back to the lodge. 

When we got back, we unpacked a little and repacked for the next day. Then we had a little episode of me not being able to get my phone to charge (long story not needed) but thankfully my dad and Caleb figured it out while my friend and I went and got the ducks and geese cleaned. 

While doing all this, my mind thought about how moving forward, what hunting trips would look like in the future. One YouTube channel my family enjoys is Baum Outdoors. He uses a formula for the large majority of his videos that are one night adventures and pretty simple, and that maybe this type of thing would be better suited for us. It would make us not be gone as long, easier for Eli and Caleb to go, and we could also do them on more of a last minute thing when the birds are migrating. 

We got back, cleaned up, had dinner and played some cards. Everyone was in good spirits, and we were really looking forward to the morning ahead, which came a lot faster than the last morning. Caleb was out even before the lights and we all slept pretty well, in fact I overslept a little. We got out to the pond, loaded up a bag on my back and sled to pull with our equipment and set off to the spot. We kicked out quite a few roosting birds, which is not my favorite thing to do, but at least we did it not much before shooting time. It was a foggy morning, which made it easy to get turned around. We finally found the spot, and when trying to hide I quickly realized it was going to be hard to hide three guys. I knew that my season was just beginning, but for my dad and friend this was most likely their last duck hunt of the year. So I kept my gun in my case, and sat right behind my dad and helped him with seeing the ducks coming from all the different directions. The hide was terrible, but it was good enough to get teal and gadwalls to decoy throughout the morning. The two of them managed to get 7 ducks in the fog. As the sun came out, it became evident that the ducks were seeing us all, and not working all that great. I had a little bit of excitement and curiosity running through me, so when things slowed down later in the morning, I convinced the rest of the group to back up to the edge of the hill that this slough ran into, and I used the sled to lay in to hide in front of the decoys. I managed to fairly quickly get another teal and gadwall but couldn’t convince a mallard to do it right. Even though it didn’t work out quite like we had hoped, the morning was still a lot of fun. I actually really enjoyed sitting behind my dad and watching him shoot. This was capped off by telling him a teal was coming right in. It came quick and right at him. It was just about to land right in front when I enthusiastically told him to take it. He shot and the shot was close enough the water gave a pretty good woosh. And somehow the duck had a little life in it and lifted its head. We told him to swat him quickly and because of the urgency my dad shot before he was really set, causing him to do a small shuffle to keep his balance. Behind him, I was fighting tears. I was laughing so hard.  

After getting the ducks cut up, cleaning up, and packing so we could all head for home right away in the morning. We enjoyed playing cards last night along with some duck poppers. We got up in the morning, made a quick easy breakfast, cleaned up a little and got on the road. Caleb and I chatted a little on the way home on how to simplify these trips in the future, while my dad and friend had a little more adventurous drive home, hitting some roads that were closed because of construction. This trip will be memorable for so many reasons, while also being a learning experience for yours truly.