"The Fever"

Well here it is still 2 1/2 months away from hunting season and the fever started in earnest this morning. After weeks of 80 & 90 degree temperatures and blazing sun I woke this morning to temps in the 50's and steady rain with overcast skies, kind of like a good hunting day without the cold. Now I know full well that I shouldn't be ready just yet but circumstances have been conspiring against me.

My first issue of Wildfowl, after months of haggling with the subscription people and changing my address, has finally showed up. I put it out of sight in the library under some other magazines and told myself not to read it until later in the summer. Then the Macks Prairie Wings catalog shows up. Certainly it's only a matter of time before the Cabellas Fall catalog arrives too. How am I supposed to resist them? Then yesterday Big Betty, my not so trusty Ford, went in for some service. It had been running poorly and all my attempts at fixing the problems myself had failed. Time to leave it to the experts. (The experts at fixing cars that is, we all know who the expert at folding Greenies is.) I only drive a couple miles to work each day and it runs well enough to get me around town but in the back of my mind I'm thinking about needing a truck to drive to Anderson Lake, maybe even towing a boat. What about a trip to Umatilla? How about even a trip to Portland? Montana? Got to have a good truck for that.

Then there is the people factor. Zach, who worked for me all last winter, called to tell me about his summer. He is a Hot Shot firefighter in Montana and has been without much work because of the wet spring and low fire danger. Talk naturally turned to our plans to do some upland hunting this fall in his home area in Montana. Turns out he bought a English Springer pup and is having it trained this summer to be somewhat ready this fall. Game on. Also, I have met a man named Grant Miller. He owns a property on the golf course where I work and we have been been forming a rapport. In talking with him the other day I found out he is a wheat farmer and owns thousands of acres of fields in eastern Oregon. He headed home last week for the harvest and will be back again to enjoy the late summer here in Idaho. I think I'll be in a position to ask him if he has any unruly ducks, geese or upland birds terrorizing his cropland, and if so I know just the guys to help him with his problem. I'll keep you updated.

Then the capper. On Wednesday my hunting buddy Dallas called. I thought he was gone for good after some kind of altercation at my old place of employment, Dave Smith Motors. Rumor had it the Dallas and another salesperson got in a fistfight in the back parking lot and both had been fired. I hadn't heard from him since. So I get a call and it turns out he is coming back to town next month to go back to work at DSM and wants to be sure that we are still hunting. Of course we are. Add all this to the fact that I keep meeting people that can't wait to slay ducks. Rocky, a bartender at the resort and recent transplant from California, is a duck hunter and is ready to go. Even my old boss at DSM, Tom, said he may be inclined to show me a secret spot or two.

Add all this together and how could I not be getting lost in the thought of the upcoming season. Only one thing about this season gives me pause. I won't be sharing every day in the blind with my H7HT co-founder Fred G. I would have to suspect that he too is starting to get the fever, a fever that only gets worse as the fall approaches. How could he not? For Heston's sake, the man was 'The Expert' for 8 years running. Fortunately for us Cliffy has started to contribute to the Blog and even though his main mission in life continues to be ridding the world of hatchery fish and keeping the rivers and streams safe from dangerous and unpredictable swimming varmints, I know he suffers the same affliction. Perhaps even Jenny X. is laying awake at night, trying to figure out what gun in his arsenal is best suited to bring down the East Coast plague of ducks. And how about Jiggitty? I'd bet money that he is just waiting for a chance to take out "One of God's green creatures" as he calls them.

All told this morning was the right time to break out the Wildfowl magazine from behind other reading material. I flipped through to an article entitled 'Three Colors: a Teal Trifecta' and was immediately transported back in time to sitting in the blind listening to Fred G's rousing rendition of the bastardized Neil Young tune, 'I want to live with a Cinnamon Teal'. How could I not have the fever now?

GBCH