This is the time of year I start really concentrating on ducks and the upcoming season. I have slowed a bit on fly fishing which I have been hitting hard since April. Now, it is time to shift gears to prepare for waterfowl hunting.

Getting my decoys in order is always a daunting task. It seems every year no matter how well I wrap cords and keep things separated in the field I find the following summer my decoy bags are in general disarray -- full of tangles and lost anchors. Then its on to waders, guns, calls and all the rest of the things I feel I need to increase my chances for success. Over the winter many items of necessity seem to wander from garage to basement to the junk drawer in the kitchen.Each year at this time I tell myself I must try a little harder to stay organized. I generally know what area in my house my things are located, but it still may take me 10 minutes to find what I’m after.

Pretty soon I’ll be driving my wife nuts. Mallard calls and goose honking will begin to bellow from the basement. Practice makes perfect so I try to get my tongue muscles ready for feeding chuckles and power calling to entice a mallard back around for one more look.

As I write this, we are nearing our September early goose and teal openers. With this comes some scouting for early cut corn fields or pastures that attract “nuisance” honkers and duck-weed choked ponds that are preferred by blue-winged teal. There’s always a couple new potholes to view, and to get permission from the landowner for later in the season when some flight ducks coming through. And then there is checking up on old haunts to see how they have changed since last year. With gas at $4 dollars a gallon scouting has become an expensive part of preparation.

At this time of year, my waterfowl discussions on the phone with friends and family start to increase, another thing that annoys the crap out of my wife, who often overhears my conversations. (“Can’t you talk about anything but ducks?”) Although it is a welcome change from four months of talking trout, steelhead and my tarpon story that she’s heard 3,000 times,  I realize I may obsess over the species I pursue. But this is what I’ve been doing my whole life. It is part of me and who I am. It is what I enjoy and what gets me through the drudgery of work and the stresses of everyday life.

As I get my things prepared I think of seasons past and remain optimistic about the days ahead. Hopefully when our regular-season duck opener finally comes around I will be fully prepared. It seems every year I’m digging through totes of gear looking for some particular item at 4:30 a.m. on opening morning. I’m getting a little better at organizing things with each passing season. Preparation makes everything go more smoothly but then I realize I sort of enjoy “hunting” for my gear. It has become a tradition.

I have grown up in a world of pessimism and despair. Every year my old man and his buddies would spend countless hours on the phone discussing poor fall flights and the problems attributed to our loss of ducks. (Keep in mind we were in the Atlantic Flyway so we really had NO ducks). I paid little attention to their televangelist outlook of impending doom. My eyes had never seen the good old days of the Chesapeake Bay region. My head had been filled with the stories and pictures of times past. While interesting and intriguing to any young hunter I was busy filling my memory with my own hunts. History was boring to a 13-year-old and at that point I never gave the future much thought. During that time period I enjoyed every hunt whether we got birds or not. Success wasn’t necessarily a full limit of birds. Many hunts only provided a duck or two. I would be elated with a pair of mallards or a single canvasback. If I happened to get a species I had not previously shot then that was a phenomenal day. These hunts were some of the greatest times of my life. I was out there shooting ducks and, in my eyes, having great success. The older guys often grumbled and moaned, but I couldn’t have been happier. A couple times each season we would have a great day with full limits and lots of shooting. Days like that would flood my mind the night before a hunt. I would lay awake tossing and turning. The excitement and anticipation would be almost unbearable. Those days when all the variables came together made for great hunts and grand memories. I had learned early on that every hunt can’t be perfect. My duck hunting reality, for the most part, was that a two-bird day was good. We just didn’t have substantial numbers of ducks to provide great shooting on a consistent basis. I grew up being perfectly happy with my hunting situation. My old man would take me out every year to hunt different areas and species. I got out and was getting birds and that was that. Bottom line was that I was successful. There were plenty of guys getting zero birds so who was I to complain? Funny how success is all in the eye of the beholder. As I have matured as a hunter I have realized that I have carried my views into my adult life. I’m still happy with going out and getting a pair of birds. Throughout the years I have taken every species of puddle duck and nearly every species of diver in North America, yet I still get excited when I get a duck that I don’t see very often. On a recent trip to California my dad and I got into a few ring-neck ducks one morning. Neither my father nor I had killed or even seen a ring-neck in six or seven years. We were elated with the rare addition to our bag. We got some funny looks from others back at the clubhouse but you couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces. Hunters who complain and grumble that they didn’t get their full limit of greenheads are restricting their own enjoyment. Take time to enjoy the day. Sit silently and watch nature wake up as the skies lighten to the east. As the day progresses take the shots that are offered and be happy now matter how the hunt ends. These are different times, especially for the older generations, and like the ducks we need to adapt and evolve. Maybe the future will bring back the great flights of seasons long ago. Drastic changes in regulations and management could prove effective. Time will tell. I still lay awake in a sort of nervous anticipation the night before a hunt. I’m usually filled with hope and optimistic thoughts about the next morning’s expedition. Remaining positive is the key to success. If the morning ends and I come in with a teal and a spoonie, you’ll still see me smiling.