Woot! I got my first woodie today!

OK, now, everyone who clicked here hoping to find kiddie porn, buzz off. I'm talking about ducks.

I went duck hunting with my friend Hellen the English Professor today at Little Dry Creek, which is probably the best public duck hunting land in the state - and this is a big state.

Unfortunately, we ended up with the worst blind in the place. Read more...
We knew it as we headed out to our spot at 5 a.m. because the listing at the hunter check station made it clear: In the three hunt days so far this season, this blind had an average of one duck per hunter - bottom of the list. And given the weather forecast - clear and still, and coming off a nearly full moon to boot - we didn't have any reason to believe we'd bring up the average today.

But sometimes ya gotta just take whatever you can get, so we headed out with the indefatigable optimism of new hunters.

After we got our decoys out - our sad, motionless decoys - we sat back down in the blind and got the lay of the land. We were facing southeast, with willow trees behind us, and a small pond ringed by tules front of us. Potentially a nice set-up.

As we listened to the cacophony of the marsh - snow geese off in this direction, specklebelly geese in that direction, wigeon swirling all around - I told Hellen we should load our guns.

"Why?" she said. "It's an hour before shoot time."

Because, I answered: Ducks might land in our decoys before shoot time, and if we pop shells in our noisy autoloaders after they've landed, they'll take off for sure.

Amazingly, the gods must have wanted me to look smart today, because about 20 minutes later when we were having a conversation about vegans, we heard the whistle of wingbeats overhead and two splashes in the water amid the mallard decoys to our left.

Meep meep. Gadwalls!

Conversation ceased as we watched their dim shadows and spoke to each other in improvised sign language. Ten minutes later, we heard two more splashes in our teal decoys straight out in front of us. Ten minutes later, another splash off to the left.

For the worst blind in the place, we sure were getting a lot of action!

Now, if they'd just hold until shoot time. We moved quietly in our blind, shifting carefully, avoiding letting our calls clank together.

Then, ten minutes before shoot time, we heard a volley of gunfire to the east.

What the hell?

It never fails - every time I go to Little Dry Creek, I hear people shooting early. The shooters were probably on adjacent private land, but five minutes later, people who were clearly on public land started shooting too.

Hellen and I looked at each other with consternation. We weren't going to shoot until shoot time - in five minutes.

And one minute later, every duck in our pond got up and left.

Sigh.

As the sky grew paler and shoot time arrived, we listened to gunfire all around us and watched the ducks flying everywhere but our little pond. Clearly, we were not on anyone's flight path.

Then I saw something off to the right near our gadwall decoys. Motion. Duck butts in the air? But they weren't moving like ducks.

Hellen and I craned our necks and I finally realized what I was seeing: otters. A family of five otters. Nearby, a heron called.

Gronk!

Lord, we had everything but ducks in this place.

We saw some off on the horizon - sorta, maybe, kinda callable... Oh, who am I kidding. But I tried anyway, lifting my newfound love, my Wingsetter Raspy Hen, to my lips. I'd been excited about this moment all week: I've finally learned to blow a mallard call, and today I might be able to use it to help Hellen get a duck, which would be her second duck ever.

I gave it a little toot, and the sound that came out was the kind of emaciated wail Arnold Schwarzenegger might make if someone kicked him in the nuts really hard.

What the hell? It had worked fine in the car on the drive over!

I tried again. No luck. Something was wrong with it. Hell.

So I switched to my Wingsetter 8-in-1, whistling a wigeon call. There'd been lots of wigeon in the area before dawn, so it seemed like a good bet.

I whistled at two ducks in the distance and they responded, swinging around and making a beeline for our blind. At 25 yards, I told Hellen, "Take 'em!"

We rose as they veered to our right and I fired a single shot, dropping my bird stone dead - belly up. Hellen didn't fire. She's still really, really new at duck hunting and just didn't feel ready in time. I totally understand.

I plunged into the water to see what I'd bagged because I hadn't quite recognized it. That's when I saw the garish black, white, red and yellow bill.

A woodie! My first wood duck ever. I shot at three hen woodies once in my second season of hunting, but had never seen anymore until today.


Hellen was excited for me, but still wanted a duck of her own. Just one duck. She has modest wishes.

Well, they might be considered modest in a decent blind in decent weather.

But our pond sucked. It was a stagnant mess. It was deadly still for the first three hours of the shoot, and when the wind picked up enough for me to put out my Windwhacker motion decoys, I discovered that the water was too deep - my poles weren't long enough to keep the fluttering metal "wings" out of the water.

Serious suckage.

We did get one flyover from a mallard pair, and we each took a shot at them, knowing they were probably a bit too high - and missed as expected. Not one single bird came within calling distance, much less shooting distance, after that.

The only bright spot of the mid-morning was that I was able to take apart my Raspy Hen, dry it out, and get it to work again. But it still didn't bring us any ducks.

Finally we had to concede defeat. Hellen and her husband were going to Napa today. She needed to get home and take a shower before their trip.

It was a bittersweet ending. I was so excited to have gotten my first wood duck - which was one of my goals this year - but so disappointed that Hellen didn't get more opportunity to shoot. She's not greedy - she doesn't expect to come home with a full strap every time. But she, like I did just a couple years ago (and to this day, I guess), craves opportunity to shoot so she can learn.

She didn't get that today.

But the season is young - we've got 92 days to go.

© Holly A. Heyser 2009

Meat is bad for you? Oh YEAH?

I spend a lot of time reading what anti-hunters say about hunters - particularly those who would like to see the whole world go vegetarian or vegan - and one of the most common arguments they make is that meat is bad for us. You know, all that stuff about heart disease and high cholesterol and clogged arteries.

My response is always that it's not meat in general that causes those maladies, but factory-farmed meat that's high in fat - and low in the kinds of nutrients you get from animals that eat a natural diet of real food, not stuff scientifically formulated to make them grow as quickly as possible.

Well, for a couple years now, I've been eating a diet in which the vast majority of the meat comes from wild game or pastured animals.

Beyond being choosy about where my meat comes from, I exercise very little restraint in my diet. I used to be into low-cal and low-fat, but living with a guy who cooks as well as Boyfriend has killed that. So, I eat what I want. As much as I want. Without counting calories or fat grams or any of that crap.

This has coincided with becoming such a busy person that I can't exercise as much as I used to. Old days: five or six days a week, religiously. Now: one to three days.

I weigh more than I used to, for sure. I used to look, uh, pretty emaciated. Now I look fairly human. Which means I can't be a model. But there's not a big market for 44-year-old models, so who cares.

But what about my health? Whenever I got blood tests in my low-cal, high-exercise days, they always came out great. But what would they look like with a higher-calorie, lower-exercise regimen?

I got the answer today: Freakin' terrific:


Total cholesterol: 182, which the American Heart Association calls "Desirable" - the best rating you can get.

HDL (good) cholesterol level: 76, well above the score of 60 that starts giving you protection against heart disease.

LDL (bad) cholesterol: 97, which the American Heart Association calls "Optimal" - the best rating you can get.

Triglycerides (a form of fat): 45, which as far as I can tell is insanely low. AHA says "normal" is anything less than 150.

I repeat: I do not exercise much restraint in my diet. In the week before I took this test, I had a big fat grilled cheese sandwich with French fries, three slices of pizza, a donut and a Whopper. It was an unusually fast food-laden week due to some extraordinary circumstances (we had a homicide on campus, and I'm the faculty adviser to the campus newspaper - to say we were in crisis mode would be an understatement).

But even in a normal week, I don't shy away from animal products normally considered verboten if you want to pass your cholesterol test. We have a fat collection in our fridge - rendered wild duck fat, pheasant fat and pastured-pork fat. We cook with that stuff all the time. I frequently cook rice with a big dollop of one of the above.

So, to all the militant vegetarians/vegans who tell me I shouldn't hunt because meat is bad for me, this militant hunter has one thing to say to you: You're wrong.

© Holly A. Heyser 2009

The newest member of Prois Field Staff is...

... me! That's right: I'm very pleased to announce that I've joined the Field Staff of Prois Hunting Apparel.

I met Prois owner Kirstie Pike at the 2008 SHOT Show and immediately took a liking to her and her women's hunting clothing line. The Prois motto is "Serious Huntwear for Real Women," which was a breath of fresh air for me after walking around the SHOT Show and seeing more camo lingerie and swimwear than women's camo huntwear. Read more...
Her clothing line stood out just as much as her attitude: Prois uses great fabrics - soft, quiet and sweat-wicking. There are some really nice touches, such as pleated knees to keep pantlegs from binding when you kneel or sit - still my favorite feature, which I really appreciated when I got my first deer ever two weekends ago. And Kirstie's clothing is made in America, so she's putting people to work here, not overseas.

What does being on the Prois Field Staff mean? I'll be trying out a lot more Prois gear, and - one of the best parts - I'll be promoting women in hunting. In fact, that's what Kirstie brought up first when she asked me to join the Field Staff. I quote: "I'm gathering a handful of badass female hunters that really promote the inclusion of women in the outdoors, work in the industry and work continuously to learn the art of hunting." Right up my alley!

Just as important is what this appointment doesn't mean. Kirstie's first concern when she invited me to join the staff was that she didn't want to inhibit my ability to review all women's hunting clothing, so I'll continue writing honestly about other clothing that comes to my attention, and I'll be keeping that women's hunting clothing list on the right column of this page.

And she doesn't mind that I'm working with Cabela's on women's duck hunting waders - something that's not in her clothing line. "Competition is a good thing," she said.

See why I like her so much?

© Holly A. Heyser 2009

Coming into my own: Why I don't care that I shot like absolute crap on my duck opener

Heading into my fourth season of duck hunting, I've been pretty excited. My shooting's been getting pretty damn good. My confidence is finally rising. I'm growing as a huntress every season, and enjoying everything I learn, whether it's hunting tips or the deep thoughts about why we hunt.

I've set some goals for this duck season: Shoot better. Learn to use the freakin' mallard call, which has been my Achilles heel. Let the ducks get close. Limit out again this year. Get my first double. Get my first wood duck and bufflehead. And take out several new women hunters.

Well, I did one of those things on my opening hunt Sunday, and it wasn't "shoot better." Read more...
Boyfriend and I went to the Delevan National Wildlife Refuge yesterday morning to wait in line for an afternoon hunt - to start the new season right where I'd finished the old one in dramatic style in January.

When my name was finally called to pick a blind, one of my options was Blind 1, which you may remember from last December - it was the place that was so beat down and bereft of cover that it looked like the Bikini Atoll.

"Diane, how's Blind 1 this year?" I asked my favorite check station employee.

"Blind 1's open and nobody's taken it??? Take it!" she said. "They've fixed it - they moved the blind. It's where the birds fly now."

Oooh, bonus points - cover and ducks!

Boyfriend and I got set up there at about 12:30 - the slowest time for ducks - and settled in for the hunt. Place decoys. Pick spots to sit. Wait for ducks. Move decoys. Pick new spots to sit. Wait for ducks.

When we saw callable ducks, I broke out my Wingsetter Raspy Hen.

My friend Sarah let me try this call last March when we were doing the photo shoot for the Cabela's catalog, and I liked it. I could never get the right sound out of most mallard calls, but this one seemed to have just the right tone for me.

For the past month or so, I've been practicing like crazy, quacking along in my car to this great CD my friend Tracey gave me from Zink Calls. It spends minimal time on humans quacking and has lots and lots of real ducks quacking. I like that - I don't want to sound like a human imitating a duck; I want to sound like a duck.

One of the most interesting things about the CD is it shows you the "chuckle" we typically do for a feeding call - tikka tikka tikka dugga dugga dugga - is not what the ducks actually do. What they do actually sounds more like a chicken's clucking, with a quacky twang to it.

So when we saw callable ducks, I put that call to my lips, clucked a few times, did a greeting call or two, and I'll be damned if the ducks didn't look interested.

"How am I sounding?"

"Good!" Boyfriend said. "Much better than last year. I really didn't want you to call then." He wasn't being mean; it was just true.

After a couple tries, the most amazing thing started happening: I was getting ducks to do U-turns. Over and over. Brought 'em in close - not feet-down-for-landing close, but "Hey, how's it goin'? This looks like a fun place to hang out" close, which is often as good as it gets in competitive, crowded refuge shooting. Sometimes Boyfriend didn't even bother calling because I was doing so well.

The only problem was that I was getting all these ducks in range, but when it came time to shoot, I was missing. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. I fired 12 shots at six birds that were totally shootable and didn't hit one of them. Boyfriend, however, was knocking them dead with immaculate head shots. Like almost every time.

My profanity grew ever more foul and strident each time I missed. I'd killed my first deer ever with a perfect shot the weekend before. Three weekends before, I'd handled myself pretty well on a chukar hunt. And on Labor Day, I was kicking ass with the doves. What the hell happened?

After about the fourth miss, I speculated that I was pulling my head off the gun and started making a conscious effort to keep my cheek down on the stock. After two more misses, I guessed that I needed to wait more patiently to get the muzzle exactly where I needed it in relation to the bird.

Finally, two wigeon came in. Boyfriend took aim at the drake, I at the hen. I fired once and missed. Head down! Focus! Correct, correct, correct - NOW!

BAM! Down, just half a second after Boyfriend brought down the drake.

"Got it!" I shouted victoriously. When I retrieved my bird, she was stone dead - shot to the head. Double bonus. Quick death is always my goal.

I'd fixed my shooting problem, and the great thing was it was 4 p.m. - we still had more than two hours of shoot time.

Unfortunately, though, nothing else came in range that entire time. The entire afternoon flight had taken place over three hours in the middle of the afternoon.

But I was OK with that. Surprisingly OK.

Two years ago, the first time I hunted the opener - also at Delevan, at a blind within shouting distance of where we were Sunday - I got just one duck when the other three guys with me got six or seven apiece, and I was really frustrated.

But when I left with just one duck yesterday, compared with Boyfriend's five, I was surprisingly cheerful. It shouldn't have taken six misses to figure out my shooting problem, but I was grateful to have done it before the last pass of shootable birds.

More importantly, my calling had totally rocked.

There was a time during that afternoon when the birds were circling perfectly in front of Boyfriend but a little too far from me, and I was more than happy just to be getting the ducks to him with my calling. It felt like I had a role in his success. That role was a new one to me, and I liked it.

So why wasn't I beating myself up more about my shooting?

I think I finally figured it out: I'm not a bad shot anymore, like I was when I first started out. I was just having a bad day. It happens to everyone, and it'll probably happen to someone with my experience level more than the veterans. It just happens.

And besides, I'm going out with my friend Hellen next weekend. I'll just try to do better then.

My lone duck - on the left

© Holly A. Heyser 2009

Second Chance Buck: The Aftermath

It's been more than 48 hours since I killed my first deer ever, and I'm still buzzing. Sometimes I'm calm and I think about other things, like work. Then I see a student who's into guns or hunting, and I say, "Wanna see my buck?" and the whole spazzing thing starts over again.

This has been both a time of reflection and a time of work.

I've reflected on how lucky I was that the buck did exactly what I needed: Hold still and present a good target.

I've reflected on how grateful I am to have made a good shot that killed him in no more than 20-30 seconds - and really, isn't that the measure of what a good shot is, a quick death, not a feat accomplished over great distance? It's probably what I'm most proud of. I know it's something to be thankful for, not to take for granted.

And I've reflected on the sheer volume of congratulations that have come in from quarters I never expected - schoolmates I haven't seen in 27 years! Crazy stuff.

Then there's been the work. Read more...
Boyfriend has been doing his thing, breaking down the meat into all the parts he loves - brisket, flank, tenderloin, backstrap.

My job, aside from writing labels on the vacuum-seal bags, has been prepping the skull for a
"Euro mount," or, as my family says, "skull."

It started on Sunday when Boyfriend announced that it would be my job to skin the head. Not bad, compared with the work he was doing. So I set to work:


Here's what I learned in that process: If you spend much time worrying about someone poking your eyeballs out, stop worrying - they're very firmly attached. My mother, who's a durable soul, happened to arrive at my house in time to watch me digging the eyeballs out of the skull, and she had to avert her eyes for a good 10-15 minutes.

Once skinned, we popped the head in the stock pot for a few hours to help cook stuff out. Yeah, stuff.


Then, this morning and this evening, I picked "stuff" off and out of the skull - cartilage, meat and even brains. I've never seen cooked brains before, and I'm here to tell you, it looks like foie gras - white and creamy.

No, we didn't eat it. But my Argentinian neighbor Silvia would probably be distraught to know that we hadn't. Last time we brought game home, she wanted to know what we did with the brains. "Heart," she said, "ees for thee cats. But I love thee brains."

Silvia, I'm not there yet. Maybe someday.

Anyway, what I'm left with is this:


The skull, picked mostly clean, will now go into a bucket of water in the back yard, where we'll let bacteria finish what I started, probably for most of winter. When it appears to have been picked clean, we'll bleach it, and it'll be ready to hang over our mantle, right next to the deer Boyfriend got this summer, Spork - a harder-earned trophy than mine by a million miles.

Even the side-by-side trophy has significance: I started hunting several years after Boyfriend, so almost everything I've done for the first time is something he's done long before. But for both of us, this was the first year we killed blacktail deer. And while the trophies may pale in comparison with the whitetail that cover so much of our country, these hunts are just as hard fought, the accomplishments no less meaningful.

In just a few days, we'll be duck hunting - a pursuit that will consume much of our free time until the end of January. But we'll have plenty of venison to add to the dinnertable mix this winter, and plenty of deer-hunting memories that won't disappear with the first shotgun blast. And for that, we're grateful.

© Holly A. Heyser 2009