I Learned to Hunt Ducks Like an Old-School North Dakotan

This story, “A Shot at Pothole Geese,” initially ran within the November 1947 challenge of Out of doors Life.

DOC POST stopped his automobile, with the duck boat lashed on prime, on the crest of a low rise within the prairie highway and waited for us. We had needed to drive two automobiles that morning. Sam Weller and I deliberate to hunt pheasants later within the day, however Doc had a day appointment—submitting down any individual’s bridgework—and would head again to city round midday.

We pulled up beside Doc’s automobile and stepped right down to see what he wished. 

“Flock of thirty or forty pintails bought out of that final pothole after I drove previous,” he defined. “Possible there’s six or eight that didn’t go away. Lets attempt for ’em?”

Sam checked out his watch. “Authorized capturing in ten minutes,” he introduced. “That’s not lengthy to attend.” 

Doc nodded. “May as effectively begin right here as anywhere,” he remarked. “We are able to sneak by that standing corn and get proper as much as ’em with none crawling if we’re cautious.” 

We stood there beside the automobiles and watched the overcast daybreak break throughout the huge and empty South Dakota prairie, and it came to visit me that I used to be about to study a brand new model of duck looking. 

Doc Submit, they’d advised me again within the city of Mitchell, the place he lives, is a pothole shooter. Once they say that a few man on the market within the prairie nation they’re paying him a reasonably excessive praise. They don’t imply pothunter, not by an extended shot. What they imply is he takes his geese the arduous means. He still-hunts ’em.

He crawls 100 yards on his stomach for an opportunity at a single. He lies within the wild sunflower tangles with out blind or decoys and waits for his birds to come back in of their very own free will. He matches wits with bluewing teal and mallards and pintails on their phrases. He stalks geese the way in which a great deer hunter stalks whitetails. He takes ’em with out trickery or subterfuge—or drives again to city and not using a single hen within the bag. 

In brief, when the oldsters out in Dakota name a person a pothole shooter they imply he’s a duck hunter, thirty-third diploma. 

And now Doc and Sam, one other apostle of pothole capturing, had invited me to go together with them and see for myself. Fortunately for me, this was earlier than 1947, so nonresidents had been nonetheless free to hunt geese in South Dakota; and I arrived in Mitchell on the peak of the heaviest early-season duck flight the prairie folks had seen in thirty years. 

Searching pheasants that week, we’d seen the sky actually alive with waterfowl. There was not often a time once we couldn’t lookup and watch geese shifting someplace. The glint of daylight on the wings of distant flocks turned nearly as a lot part of these days within the massive Dakota cornfields because the clatter of pheasants rocketing out of the weeds. 

SLOUGHS and potholes had been swarming with teal and spoonbills and pintails, with a great scattering of greenheads blended in. Some had been native geese hatched on the prairies, some had come down from the north with a number of days of stormy climate. 

“The duck despair has ended out right here,” Sam mentioned to me the night we deliberate our pothole hunt. “If you happen to exit with Doc and me within the morning you’ll earn your geese. It’s not armchair looking. However we’ll present you some capturing to recollect.” 

AND NOW the three of us had been ready there along with the muddy highway whereas the sunshine brightened steadily over the large stage fields. The prairie wind was uncooked and moist on our faces. The morning promised rain. However whereas we watched, a slim band of rose confirmed beneath the grey on the jap skyline and the clouds overhead started to interrupt, pushed by a wild, excessive, northwest wind. 

“It’s actually blowing up there,” Doc remarked. “Geese will transfer at this time.” 

Lastly Sam checked out his watch once more. “Time,” he mentioned crisply, and snapped three shells into the journal of his 12 gauge. 

The pond the place we hoped the geese had been ready lay 200 or 300 yards again down the highway. It lined a few acres and was dotted with clumps of grass and low brush. A giant area of uncut corn shut it in on three sides. 

We moved off the highway into the corn and started our stalk, creeping down the weedy rows at a half crouch, pussyfooting alongside as cautiously as three cats after a robin. 

The moist wind rustled the corn blades with sufficient noise to cowl any minor racket we’d make. This, I advised myself, can be duck soup. I might imaginative and prescient these startled pintails rising in panic off the pond. I might see myself lining my 20 gauge on the closest hen. The thought went by my thoughts that I’d possible make a double. 

THEN I got here right down to earth. We had been nonetheless fifty yards from the sting of the pond, hidden within the corn, when from about the identical distance out on the water there got here a sound as of heavy rain pattering down, then a pointy wing rustle and a bunch of seven pintails went zooming up like a well-drilled squadron of miniature rocket planes. 

They didn’t seem panic-stricken. They went out in a rush, duck trend,however they had been effectively out of vary and one thing about their swift and ordered flight steered that they knew it. 

I stood and watched them beat their means throughout the prairie, gaining altitude as they went, and stubborn softly beneath my breath. Once I regarded round Doc was grinning at me. 

“They’re fairly good,” he mentioned mildly. And Sam added, additionally grinning, “That’s why we prefer it.” 

“We’ll go search for one other pond,” Doc determined then. 

The pond wasn’t arduous to seek out. Water had come again on the South Dakota prairies in the last few years. Within the part the place we had been looking, each sq. mile of land had from two to twenty potholes and small sloughs. 

“There are some good pintail holes over on the following part,” Sam steered. “Let’s look ’em over.” We did and I bought my first actual style of pothole looking on a kind of pintail ponds. Stuffed with weeds and grass, it lay beside the highway on the foot of an extended grade. We parked the automobiles on the prime of the hill 1 / 4 mile away. 

“I’ll go down by the corn on the other facet of the highway,” Sam proposed. “You two swing round and are available from the east and we’ll have the birds between us.” He took it with no consideration that there’d be geese within the gap. 

Doc and I climbed the fence into an previous pasture grown with sparse weeds and started an extended circle to come back as much as the pond the place Sam had indicated. We had been midway there and I might see water excessive of the grass after I heard a noise just like the distant rumble of thunder behind us. 

I used to be flat on my stomach by that point making a stalk, however that low muttering noise stopped me in my tracks. There was an ominous high quality about it that I didn’t like. 

I twisted my head round and my worst misgivings had been confirmed. On the close to facet of a fence, perhaps 200 yards away, was a black bull in regards to the dimension of a buffalo. He had noticed us inching alongside by the grass of his pasture and resented it. He stood watching us, mumbling beneath his breath, and even at 200 yards I knew there was a truculent gleam in his eye. Each few seconds, simply to lend emphasis to what he was saying, he dropped his massive black head and pawed a handful of turf. 

Doc Submit was twenty ft away on my proper, wiggling alongside as near the bottom as a sidewinder. I signaled him with a pointy hiss. 

HE STOPPED and turned his head my means with out lifting his face three inches from the bottom. “Look behind you, Doc,” I whispered urgently. “Bull!” 

He managed a nod along with his nostril nonetheless down within the grass. “By no means thoughts him,” he snorted. “There’s geese down in that pothole.” And with that he crawled forward once more. 

I went on, however my thoughts wasn’t on the duck hunt. The bull stayed by the fence, muttering and grumbling, and whereas we made the remainder of that agonized crawl I stored my head twisted over my shoulder more often than not to ensure who was stalking whom. 

We had been twenty yards from the marsh, the grass was scaling down, and I spotted that no matter was going to occur wouldn’t be delayed for much longer. Then, proper in entrance of my face, a giant grey jack rabbit took off like a bat out of a chimney. 

My nerves had been geared to the bull again by the fence, and set on a hair set off. I used to be stretched out as flat as a living-room rug, actually worming by the brief grass. When the rabbit went out I choked again a yell that might have scared the geese out of half the county. However proper after the rabbit’s clattering getaway I heard duck wings ripping the water. Doc bounced up on one knee and his pump gun talked out in three brief, stable syllables. 

I forgot the bull and the rabbit. I scrambled to my ft and laid two pictures throughout the pond. On the second I noticed a duck crumple and drop again to the water with a splash. Then Sam had two pictures from the corn on the far facet of the pothole, and I counted 4 geese that the flock had left behind.

“Spoonbills,” Doc mentioned. “There are different geese I’d relatively shoot, however this isn’t unhealthy for a starting.” 

I began right down to the marsh to retrieve however he halted me. 

“We’ll get down and wait,” he defined. “Chances are high they’ll circle again and provides us one other shot.” 

We lay within the grass and watched the spoonbills swing far out over the corn. I spotted the bull had misplaced curiosity in us and stopped bellowing and I felt so much higher. Then the geese headed again, simply as Doc had predicted. 

They got here in over the tip of the pond, too excessive for capturing. They circled and slanted down and made up their minds to alight, and I might hardly consider my eyes. However when thirty ft above the water they appeared to recall abruptly that this was the place all the difficulty had began 5 minutes earlier than. They flared and swung off—and a second later they had been boring straight over our heads. 

It appeared a excessive shot however I risked it. I missed clear after which the heavier report of Doc’s massive gun smashed out and a spoonbill dropped, killed as if hit by a lightning bolt. Whereas we watched them rocket on, a second faltered, misplaced flight velocity, and pitched steeply down into the prairie grass. Doc had made a double with one shot. 

We picked up our geese and held a bit of council of conflict. Sam voted to attend within the corn beside this pothole for half an hour whereas Doc and I attempted one other pond a few fields away. 

“Geese are on the transfer,” Sam identified. “There’ll be extra dropping in right here. I’ll take a wager I’ve some pintails or mallards by the point you two get again.” On the following pothole, in the midst of a naked pasture the place a stalk was out of the query, Doc and I noticed a flock of near fifty pintails. 

They had been huddled in a bit of raft in the midst of the pond, feeding and making a number of duck dialog. We watched them from the crest of a low ridge for 1 / 4 hour, attempting to scheme up a way of getting close to sufficient for capturing. The probabilities regarded slim however Doc lastly hatched a plan. 

“I’ll go as much as the top of the pond,” he proposed. “Give me fifteen minutes to get set after which crawl alongside this ridge as shut as you may. If you happen to put ’em up they might swing over me. In the event that they’re nonetheless on the water in twenty minutes I’ll come down on ’em and drive ’em this manner. One in all us ought to select off a pair.” 

It sounded good however the geese upset it. They should have had sentries out; for Doc was nonetheless on his method to the top of the pond and I used to be getting organized for my crawl after they took alarm. They climbed steeply over the far facet of the pothole and had been gone. I heard Doc hail me. 

“Beat it right down to the sting of the water and discover a place to cover in case you can,” he yelled. “They’ll be again!” 

I didn’t consider it, not in a spot like that, however I did as I used to be advised. We raced for reverse sides of the pond and as I ran I picked the closest factor to a pure blind wherever in that pasture. Cattle coming right down to water had reduce the financial institution away with their hoofs in a single place on my facet, leaving a steep dropoff two or three ft excessive. I might crouch there, and if the geese got here in on the proper angle perhaps they’d overlook me. 

I dropped down beneath the financial institution and regarded for Doc. There was no shelter of any sort on his facet, however a dozen ft above the water a small scrubby cottonwood stood all by itself. Doc was flattened beneath it, hugging the bottom. He noticed me watching and jerked a warning arm off to the south. There, positive sufficient, got here the pintails again. 

They made a giant circle across the pond, out of vary however low sufficient for us to listen to the rustling passage of their wings. They had been trying the place over. And abruptly to my amazement they appeared happy. They swung out over the prairie, wheeled in shut formation, set their wings, and got here slanting in. 

That was a sight I’ll always remember, that band of fifty sprigs planing down, tilting, guiding themselves within the air like a squadron of little monoplanes, the entire bunch coming in and not using a wingbeat. It was as fairly a bit of duck acrobatics as I’ve ever watched, and even whereas it occurred I couldn’t consider it. There was Doc beneath his cottonwood, conspicuous as a tombstone in the midst of the cow pasture. And there I used to be, crouched beneath the low pank in plain sight of each duck within the flock. 

However nonetheless they got here on, dropping steeply now. They had been seventy ft above the water, then fifty, twenty—one other beat of time would carry them sq. between us at straightforward vary. I braced myself to whip the gun up. However I by no means lifted it. For the pintails on the head of the flock noticed us in that final break up second earlier than they got here inside attain of our cross fireplace. As one duck the bunch flared and pounded up nearly vertically. That point they went for good. 

Three or 4 minutes later we heard capturing from Sam’s route. 

“They went that means,” Doc identified. “Guess he bought him some geese.” 

On the way in which again to hitch Sam we circled to absorb a bit of pothole on the fringe of a cornfield the place Doc had killed three or 4 mallards the weekend earlier than. We discovered it empty. Doc was disenchanted. 

“Should be mallards right here,” he declared; “it’s an incredible spot for ’em. I’ve seen—” He broke off abruptly. “Right here comes one,” he whispered. “A single. Over your shoulder.” 

There was no must crouch down. We had been hidden in a thick development of sunflowers taller than a person’s head. I twisted round and watched the lone duck come racing in. 

“He’s a giant greenhead,” Doc whispered. “It’s your flip. Take him!” 

I took him. I swung with the duck as he rocketed over. My shot broke his arrowing flight and he turned shapeless and got here curving down upon the water. 

Once we bought again to Sam he had collected a few pintails and a greenwing teal, and had misplaced a cripple within the thick grass of the pond, all with out leaving his place within the corn. He had had much better capturing than we. We joined him in a hunt for the cripple however after ten minutes of wading we gave up and went again to the automobiles.

“There’s an incredible mallard pond a few miles down the highway,” Doc Submit advised me. “It’s in the midst of a giant cornfield. If there are geese wherever in South Dakota at this time there’ll be greenheads on that pothole!” 

I bought into Doc’s automobile for a change and we began off. Lower than half a mile on the way in which to the mallard pond we tangled with one other little bunch of pintails. They had been in a shallow pothole in a weedy wheat stubble. We noticed them from the highway. There was loads of tall grass for a crawl and it regarded just like the sweetest set-up we had encountered that morning. What we didn’t know was that the geese had been holding a fortified place. The wheat area was stuffed with sand burs. 

These Dakota sand burs develop wherever from a foot to 3 ft excessive and so they kind a tangle that’s nearly manproof. The burs are in bunches and the stems are loaded with ’em. The spines are 1 / 4 inch lengthy and as sharp as a needle. You stroll by an infested area, looking pheasants, and each few yards you need to cease and choose the burs out of your pants behind the knees. 

Attempt getting down in your stomach as flat as a bull snake and wiggling by a large number of that stuff! 

We had been midway to the pond after I put my hand into the primary clump of burs. I stubborn and pulled again and regarded for a means across the impediment. I seen that Sam and Doc had slowed down about the identical time. 

We wormed forward, sliding our weapons alongside on the bottom, inching across the burs the way in which you’d undergo a mine area. It took us ten minutes to cowl the final fifty yards. We made it ultimately and Doc waved us up with a swift hand sign. The geese flailed the water in sudden and frantic confusion, and as they lifted clear the weapons started to speak. We put down 4 out of the bunch. 

“Ought to’ve carried out higher,” Doc commented. “That’s a number of sand burs to crawl by for 4 pintails!” 

Slightly farther down the highway we drove previous a small pond on the nook of a farmer’s barnyard. His flock of tame geese drowsed on the muddy financial institution however there have been no different waterfowl in sight. We remarked about it as a result of that was one of many only a few potholes we noticed that forenoon that had been empty of untamed birds. 

Simply after we went previous the farm pond I missed my looking cap and recalled that I had left it again among the many sand burs. It was a bright-red leather-based affair and I had snatched it off and dropped it, fearing the geese would possibly discover the spot of vivid shade by the grass tops. 

I known as a halt and we went again to select up the cap. It took perhaps 5 minutes. However once we drove previous the barnyard pond the second time six or eight spoonbills had been feeding there. That they had dropped in as casually as tame geese in that five-minute interval. 

The farmer might have stood in his kitchen door and reached that bunch with a slingshot. We drove simply past the home, parked, and sneaked again by the sunflowers alongside the facet of the highway. Once we reached a spot that put the flock of geese out of line of fireside we stepped into the open, flushed the shovelers, and blazed away. We bought three of ’em. 

Then ultimately we went on to the mallard pond and heard geese gabbling within the corn once we stepped out of the automobiles. “They’ll be mallards,” Doc predicted. His eyes had been shining. “Let’s do that proper!” 

We separated in order to come back on the pothole from two sides. The weedy corn stood shoulder-high, making the stalk a simple one. Doc and I halted a bit again from the water’s edge and gave Sam 5 minutes extra to get in place. Then we crouched over and lined the previous couple of yards with a rush. 

The pond exploded with geese. There have been someplace between 100 and 200 mallards in that bunch. The entire pothole was alive with them. As they flailed their means up within the steep vertical climb so typical of greenheads we opened on them from the sting of the corn at point-blank vary. 

Doc shot twice so shut collectively it was nearly one gun blast, and I noticed two geese begin to drop earlier than I made my first play. I didn’t achieve this effectively. Possibly there have been too many geese. Possibly I had mallard fever. Possibly I simply shot into the flock. Anyway I poured three rounds out of the 20 gauge, with the marsh in entrance of me blanketed with rising drakes and Susies, and by no means lifted a feather.

It was throughout in 4 or 5 seconds and I stood and watched the large flock wheeling off above the corn, not understanding whether or not to chortle at myself or get mad and throw the gun after ’em. 

“Man, that was capturing!” Doc yelled. “We bought six or seven. I can see 4 from right here.” 

Sam hailed us from throughout the pond. “Three down on this facet,” he introduced.

I waded out after the closest mallard, saying nothing, and fifty ft in entrance of me a lone straggler lifted belatedly out of the rushes. What had delayed him I don’t know. Possibly he had made up his thoughts to skulk after which thought higher of it. 

He climbed straight up with hammering wings, his inexperienced head and chestnut breast glinting within the morning solar that got here by the damaged clouds overhead. He was a jeweled duck, an ideal mallard drake if ever I noticed one. I laid the gun on him as he labored up. He crumpled on the shot and fell like a stone. 

“That’s capturing!” Doc yelled once more, and now I turned and answered him. 

Learn Subsequent: Game-Farm Mallard Genetics Are a Bigger Problem Than Waterfowlers Think — Only 2% of Greenheads in the Atlantic Flyway are Fully Wild

“Doc,” I mentioned, “this pothole looking of yours is the best duck enterprise I ever bought blended up with.” 

“Pothole looking?” Doc regarded harm. “That’s no title for what we’ve carried out this morning. That is duck looking—Dakota model. If there’s something higher we don’t find out about it out right here!”

This textual content has been minimally edited to fulfill up to date requirements.