In the beginning

In the beginning, there was light, and it was good…….because it meant we could now shoot that damn diving duck that has been taunting us in our decoys for 30 minutes now!
That pretty much defines our typical hunting day, peppered with coffee, cold pop tarts, a few futile shots at high passers, diving ducks that refuse to fly, and the occasional ticket or trip to the ER to add spice to our hunting trips.  In the following meandering, often detoured trip down memory lane, you will relive our entertaining, never boring, attempts to kill the elusive duck, pheasant, goose, turkey, or in most cases, just the unfortunate tree, paper target, grapefruit, or shaken soda can……
“A Boil on the Butt of Pistakee Lake”- January 13, 2016
It started, at least as far as my hunting in IL, with the story shared by Jim (aka Slug) in his “Get your own gun” post of last month…. I was an early recipient of the SPAS-12 life lesson…..  I became a much more active, and willing participant in our hunting adventures in the following years, with a story that begun with a big blue boat, gray tarps, law enforcement, and shotgun plugs….. or the absence thereof.  The details are fuzzy, but in general, I think the discussion went something like….
BUFFALO- “I sure hear a lot of shooting going on at Pistakee Lake in the morning.” (it was duck season, and I had recently moved within a stone’s-throw of the mentioned lake).  “perhaps we should investigate”
SLUG- “Sounds like a PLAN” (our plans were always PLANS, all CAPS, with much discussion- we were all still single at this point, so had much free time to PLAN).  “Lets see if the other Usual Suspects are interested”.
The cast of the Usual Suspects would swell and dwindle with our failures and successes, but almost always included our US#1- Mike (who we will refer to as “Tator” to protect his identity..). in later years and stories, he remains as US “Only”, as all others disappear from the role call.
TATOR and others- “We’re in…..How do we get to the Happy Hunting Grounds?”
It was here that we were stymied….. none of us had a hunting boat, and the public areas to hunt required a boat to get to.  BUT, Buffalo did have a girlfriend (fiancée, and fellow homeowner, at that point) who had a very fine 17 ft bright blue and white Crestliner open-bow runabout.  Very fine for water skiing and general water fun, but did seem to pose a problem when it came to being indistinguishable from the general rushes and cattails of the Pistakee Lake shoreline.  
We were undeterred, however, as Buffalo had large gray tarps.  On a cloudy, low light morning in Johnsburg in the Fall, the water of said lake were very gray looking, and we reckoned that it would appear so for an overhead duck…….. so we, Slug, Buffalo, Tator, and a couple stray US’s unloaded the BBB (“Big Blue Boat”), loaded all the hunters onboard, and headed for Terra Incognito…..
We had everything covered…… including the boat with said gray tarps- all we needed were DUCKS!  Or, as we found out, shotgun plugs, and in the case of Tator, a waterfowl stamp, which he was unable to secure.  Our attempts to hide from waterfowl with our clever camo did not fool the local DNR law enforcement.  I can only guess (by the periodic snickers as we were interrogated) at the conversation that went on as the DNR officers, in their also shiny (with flashing lights) boat, as they pulled up to us…
DNR #1- another quiet day on Pistakee Lake, not many hunters out.
DNR#2- I wonder what that big blue boat is doing over there in the shallow, cattail infested bay over there- perhaps they are in distress, better go check it out.
DNR#1- Hello?  They are wearing camo and sporting guns, are they DUCK HUNTING?!?!?  Oh, we HAVE to check this out….
Anyway, we learned, after getting tickets for the 2 guns without the required 2-shell limiting plug in the magazine, that just throwing a pencil or pen in the magazine will suffice, and also found that ducks are indeed not fooled by gray tarps, and future hunting trips included a canoe provided by a regular US, one Dale “Sequences”, for his quite well thought-out Sequence Theory on hunting prep- a topic for another story later.








That story also will have to wait- Chapter Two of the Book entitled “How Pistakee Lake Kicked Our Hiney”…….