Today was the first time in a while I had been out in Clider’s
new boat. I did not die.
I met Clider at 4:30am with plenty of time to get to
Killarney before sunrise and account for Daylight Savings Time. Actually
it was 4:35 by the time I got there and he had called me to be sure I was
coming. I’m usually more punctual. We loaded up in the cold
morning temperatures and made it to the lake just in front of another group of
guys who had only a row boat to get out to the channel, what a bunch of
unprepared mollackas right? I changed into waders and guided Clider back
into the ice crusted waters, later we found out that the heavy crunching noise
the trailer made backing in was partially his license plate and a small part of
his taillight breaking off and disappearing into the water. Good thing he
didn’t find out until later, it made him mad.
We were in the water first but the guys in the rowboat were
off before us breaking ice on their way out to the spot Dallas and I had hunted
years before. We were headed to the alley on the far side of the lake
where my boat had gone the year before and I had ripped my brand new pair of Gore-Tex
waders on some rusty debris. This time would be different, no waders
would be destroyed and greenies would die. We set out a large armada of geese,
mallards and divers in a linear patter Clider has assured me would bring in
every duck coming by. There was only one problem. No ducks.
In fact the only real ducks we saw were the group of 6 or 8 drake
mallards that came by as Clider and Peat were on the shoreline warming
up. They buzzed once and headed down lake towards the guys in the rowboat.
Shots rang out and we saw only a couple ducks leave. Nice job
Mollacas! Of course there was one other duck. We had both walked
down to the spot of the aforementioned wader ripping incident, upon our return,
after I had put down my gun, after I had taken off my gloves and as I was
shifting my chair, the lone Henny that had been sitting no more than 10 feet
from me in our blocks casually took off and flew away. No biggie, I only
shoot Widgeon. The action dried up after that and we decided to head on
home but something caught Cliders attention. Another hunter, some guys in
an airboat, had gotten stuck and needed a ride back to shore. Clider was
just the guy to do it. I felt bad for Peat as he pulled away leaving us
behind. Peat was sure that he had gone forever and no amount of
reassurance could convince him his master would be back. Peat was not at
all concerned for me as I pulled and wrapped all the blocks and put them in
nice patches of open water surrounded by ice. This way they would be easy
to load when the boat returned. When it did the wake broke up the ice and
the blocks sailed free. Sweet!
Shortly after we had a nice cruise back to the boat ramp in which
I marveled at how much more stable and confidence inspiring Clider’s boat
is then my old one was. As we passed the row boat guys we saw they had
set up in the waters of the channel and it seemed that of the few birds that
came by that day, they all funneled right down that channel. Could these
guys be smarter than us? Not a chance.
We are the H7HT and we are the Best.
GBCH
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