The Grumpy, Foul-Smelling Deer Hunter

November 1, 2013 Shawn West Leave a comment

Every year I create a checklist of the gear, clothing and goodies I need to pack for deer season, and just today I put the finishing touches on the 2013 edition of that document. It is a seasonal task that I look forward to far more than I do to other fall tasks such as raking leaves, preparing the yard for winter, and putting ice-scrapers in my car.

You see, the list means deer season is imminent. All the other jobs just mean winter is coming.

This year I left something off the list that has been on it for several previous years, and it is part experiment, part reactionary protest on my behalf that I’m leaving it off. This year, I have sworn not to use any scents or scent control products at all.

And here’s why.

I am a historian by training, and even if I wasn’t I am a firm believer in the empirical value of history. That is to say that history is as good as an indicator of future results than anything else I have observed. And history tells me that scent control products don’t have a significant effect on success. All the scent control peddlers will of course tell you otherwise, but another trait of mine is a healthy skepticism of any institution or individual looking to ‘sell’ you something. After all, they have a vested interest in having you purchase their product and may take to wild assumptions and promises to sway you to their financial benefit.

But enough of the proselytizing on my part; here’s the (strictly personal and empirical) evidence as I can present it.

Every son probably has some degree of hero worship for his father, but I am not exaggerating to state that my dear old dad has been a veritable deer assassin in his life. Scores of deer have met their demise at the end of his rifle, and a good many of them sported nice headgear. Several of those could be described as “mature” bucks…you know, the kind that, according to our friends in the scent control industry, are so hard to kill that some sort of “nasal confusion device “ or other olfactory trick would be required to give us mere mortals an upper hand. That Dad kills deer is a fact (and one that is not without jealous derision in our deer camp), and here is another fact. My Dad utilizes exactly zero scent control outside of hunting the wind correctly, and even that is sometimes impossible given the wind’s fickle nature. Likewise I can honestly say that I haven’t seen him use a deer scent lure in the nearly two decades that I’ve been deer hunting with him. Dad’s coat regularly hangs next to the camp cookstove, or from a beam adjacent to the dining room table. It isn‘t just my Dad either. Both of my uncles are accomplished deer slayers, and my one uncle shot a 150-160 class buck wearing a coat that regularly hung to dry above the same cookstove where we cooked bacon daily. Not an ounce of scent dispersion technology in that jacket, and yet here we are. I’ve hunted with men who smelled like distilleries when they woke up, and they shot deer. I know others who smoke cigars on stand, and they shoot deer as well. Ditto the guys with wretched coffee breath and the men who sit in trucks that smell like wet dogs and cheese on the drive to their deer stand.

My only logical conclusion to these observed facts is that deer like (or at the very least aren’t offended by) the smell of people-food, retrievers, whiskey, and fine Cuban cigars. All of which seems perfectly natural in my opinion.

Another interesting fact that I uncovered in researching this post was that for decades (maybe even centuries!) deer hunters managed to kill deer without dousing themselves in synthetic attractants, carbon-based odour elimination sprays, or impregnating their undergarments with charcoal. Shocking, I know, but not nearly as shocking as the willful ignorance of this fact by scads of deer hunters globally.

I’m put in mind of a scene that would be patently absurd if what was a joke, but is all the more ridiculous in that the participants were so gravely serious. Just recently I watched an interesting hunting episode on television (I won’t name the show, since I find their production model and hunting practices generally offensive) where a group of ‘hunters’ to use the term loosely essentially drove around an enormous ranch in a truck, where upon sighting a suitable buck would shoot said deer from the modified platform on top of the vehicle, typically from distances of 500 yards or more. Every one of these mighty hunters wore their scent-control impregnated jackets proudly, and a prominent company that specializes in those garments was a key sponsor to the show. And having related that, I’d now like to pose the following questions.

First, how in the world could a deer smell a hunter at such extended distances? How bad do you have to smell that a deer can smell you from nearly half-a-mile away?

Second, and perhaps more importantly, did the scent-control technology also mask the exhaust smell from the noticeably idling truck that the hunters were sitting upon?

Now let me admit openly that I’m not a very good deer hunter. I have difficulty sitting still, I don’t stalk through the woods in a particularly quiet manner, and I’m not that proficient with a rifle (I prefer the embedded forgiveness that shotgunning waterfowl affords me), so I can assure you that this is not some means for me to make myself feel better about my own failings; I claim full ownership of those. But even a deer hunter as inept as I am somehow has managed to kill a handful of deer, all without the aid of any scent control sprays or products.

Now I’m not lambasting scent control at large. I’m sure for the close quarters of bow hunting that a lack of scent control becomes a serious impediment to success. I have no doubts at all about the power of a deer’s sense of smell either, and I have no doubts that lures and attractants can be effective tools. What I’m objecting to in this little tirade is the lockstep and unquestioned belief that a soaking in sprays, additives, and specially formulated laundry detergents is a prerequisite to successful deer hunting (and I’m not even mentioning those special sort of deer hunters that keep their equipment in sanitized bags full of moss, dirt, and doe urine or mock scrape juice…those are pathological signs of mental illness if you ask me).

I’m also not some crank throwback advocating the removal of science and technology from deer hunting; I am just fine with reasonably powered optics, waterproof materials in my coats and boots, and precision shooting rifles. Go ahead and use your scent control, but have no illusions about what is doing either. I’ve worn it in the past and had deer wind me, and I’ve shot the few deer I have without having lathered any of it on my person.

So this year, I’m going with my own musky, natural odour in the woods. With maybe just a hint of bacon grease splashed on as well, for luck. We’ll see how it turns out.

goose hunting, hunting

Hunted Hard Makes for Hard Hunting

September 12, 2013 Shawn West Leave a comment

I’ve long held a theory that when there aren’t many of a given species of animal around, those animals in reality become easier to hunt. Harder to find, but once found, relatively simpler to hunt.

When early goose opened up, I got a text from a friend of mine that a crew of guys had been really putting the hurt on the geese in our preferred hunting area. Working them hard, shooting lots of them, and generally giving the geese a crash course in how to avoid decoys, calling, and putting a stack of pressure on them. For a long time, our crew was the group putting the heavy pounding on the geese, but with abundance comes competition. I’ve never minded a little bit of competition.

We stood out in the laneway until nearly midnight telling stories, laughing, and planning the day to come. It was warm and windy, but the morning forecast told of rain coming. Five o’clock came around awful quick and when I heard my alarm going off, the background noise outside was of pounding rain and rumbling thunder. A flash of lightning or two made me think of rolling over and snoozing away. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the gang was meeting in my kitchen, so I really had no choice but to suit up.

We stood in the kitchen in our gear watching rain teem down and we decided that we were going to brave the elements. At about the time we pulled into the field, the rain had basically diminished into a thin mist, but it was still grey and foggy as we put out the decoys, and as we hunkered down in the grass along a fence that separated a pasture field from cut canola we shot each other some worried glances. This was option “D” for us, and none of us were sure that the birds would co-operate. Those worries were put to rest in short order.

Within ten minutes of getting situated, a small group started winging directly our way. We hardly had to call them, and a few moans and soft clucks had the geese locked up and dropping in. We shot adequately, but did leave a long retrieve or two for ourselves. Every ten minutes or so for another ninety minutes they came in like that, and while our shooting (or at least mine) definitely had some early season rust on it, we put a dozen in the truck bed before 9am. The last group of the morning hunt made me especially happy. We were asleep at the switch and by the time we saw them they were floating down into the middle of a cut field on the other side of the road. Rory, Tack, and I got aggressive on the calling and, to my surprise the birds picked up and started climbing. They made a narrow clearance over the hydro lines next to the road and then started floating down again, this time about forty yards out from our ‘sweet spot’. With good work on the low end of the calls we drifted the group into range, taking down the last geese of our morning. A few photos and a celebratory meat-lovers omelet made me happy to be hunting again.

A dozen geese and a few happy hunters

L-R: Wayne, Rory, Tack, Jason, myself, Barry, (not pictured, Rob)

Feeling lucky, or foolhardy, those of us with layout blinds made a run on the same field for the afternoon. We set up more to the middle and heavily grassed in the blinds. Looking back at the blinds from our anticipated landing zone, I had to admit that they looked pretty fine.

Four hours and a couple of naps later, we had seen exactly one flock, and it had no interest of even looking our way, even though we flagged and called sweetly to them. It was one of the only times that I’ve ever hunted that the geese did not come off the water in the evening to go to the fields. One group to the northwest got one goose. Hardly any were flying at all.

The only plausible solution to such a fruitless afternoon hunt was to make the spiciest possible meal from some of the geese we had shot in the morning. Using fresh jalapenos, herb and garlic cream cheese, and browned cubed goose breast meat I presented my fellow hunters with a plate of cripplingly spicy deliciousness. They complained and moaned, but it all got eaten. Again it was nearly midnight when the lights went out and the stories stopped. Some of our intrepid cohort went into town for a wedding dance. None of that motley crew made it out for a shoot in the morning.

For those of us not inebriated, the next morning was significantly sunnier, but also crisper with a wind that blew hard and often from the northwest. We set up in gloaming light, but a blazing fireball rose above the horizon soon enough.

Now, I hesitate to read the mind of geese, but I can safely say we saw thousands of them that morning and almost all of them had not the slightest inkling of landing in our setup, which this time had us secreted away in a copse of trees found in the middle of a freshly cut grain field. When we stood in the shadow and overhanging limbs of the sparse trees we were as well hidden as one could ask. Unfortunately, as we stood about in the field edge talking on the subject of women (I think) three geese…the only three geese we saw that morning below an altitude of one hundred yards…checked our spread briefly and then departed upward. No one even managed a shot. The other 997 geese we saw that morning were all flying high, fast, and due south. No flagging, calling, decoys, or the prayers of us desperate heathen hunters seemed to interest them one iota. It was my hope that all the smart local birds were in that army of geese marching down the peninsula, because the way I’d been hearing it the flats we hunt had been shot hard for four consecutive days and it was getting such that even the most persistent hunters were tasting diminished success or outright failure. Geese hung back and circled at distances that would make the most shameless sky-buster blush. They were just being downright ornery and tough as hell to work. I had a walloping huge plate of bacon and eggs to drown my sorrows at being so handily defeated that morning by a bird with a chestnut-sized brain.

But despite the hard-slogging, we were hunting again and as we laughed and were cruel to one another’s failings and faults, it didn’t really matter how much we shot or didn’t shoot. There was a time when we valued our experiences in body count, but the bloom has been off that particular rose for some time now, and although I won’t speak for a goose, I think I can speak for my hunting chums when I say that we get a thrill from watching the birds work, from calling them in and seeing success in our set up, and from hamming it up with each other during the downtime. Since I know Rory reads this, I’ll pump his tires by telling the Internet that he’s a crack shot with a crab apple and that he’s fortunate I have a sense of humour. In two weeks we do it all again for geese and ducks, and this time with the added bonus of a new mourning dove season in our neck of the woods. I can’t say with certainty that we’ll have more success or less, but we’ll have a time trying and it may even breed a story or two for this medium.

Still, I hope to hell that the birds play nice for an afternoon or two, because I can only write about pretty mornings, food, and defeat so often.

goose hunting, hunting

Fits & Starts, Tinkering & Fixing…and then Waiting

September 5, 2013 Shawn West Leave a comment

With just a few short days remaining until I get into my goose season here in Ontario and with it the unofficial “start of fall” for me, I’m just pacing around the house like a tiger in a cage. I constantly wander around thinking about the upcoming hunt, planning for different weather contingencies, practicing my calling, and prepping and re-prepping my equipment. I can’t do anything productive, and since I can’t do anything productive, I’ll just write about it.

A couple of weekends ago I went all out. Using black potting soil I mixed up a few litres of mud and smeared them all over my layout blind. Then when the mud dried, I went out and swept it all off. Then I forgot that my blind was still deployed in my backyard and it rained on my blind for three days. Now my blind isn’t shiny and new looking, but it does smell like rain and mud, and it leaves dirty stains on my clothes every time I pick it up. Which are good things. There is also a blind-shaped patch of dead grass on my back lawn.

Once my blind dried in my garage for three days, I tightened up all the screws, oiled all the previously wet hinges, and sewed a couple of seams (that’s right I can sew). This sundry tinkering and busy work was a nice distraction for about two hours. Then I sat in the blind to make sure I hadn’t made anything worse with my brainless fiddling and my hunger to get out in the field tripled.

I packed all the gear, minus my gun and shells, in my car, and then was forced to unpack it to go buy groceries. Now I’ve packed it again and if necessary, my family can go hungry…because I’m not unpacking it again until it is time to put the equipment to use.

And put it to use I shall. I spoke with some buddies today and the prognosis for the hunt is good; lots of geese milling around, a good selection of places to set up, and a whole lot of competition for the fields we want to hunt. Since I have various and sundry goose hunting acquaintances, I have also been tantalized with pictures and stories of the various early season hunts they have been enjoying success with. Even my cousin sent me a picture of a short hunt they had on their opening morning. A smoldering desire to get out in the field is now a full blown inferno and it has made me so wretchedly unproductive that my career, marriage, and financial security are all in jeopardy.

Okay, so maybe not but you get the idea.

I had long hoped that this would be something that would improve as I grew older. As a much younger person I used to be literally unable to sleep, such was the anticipation, and this really didn’t pose much of a problem when the next day held nothing other than hunting, napping, and eating. But now I am nominally an adult, and as such I have responsibilities (or so they tell me). I am accountable to a boss, several dozen clients, and perhaps most importantly a spouse and two young boys. Shirking my duties because of hunting-anticipation-related-insomnia (which should be a clinically recognized condition, even though I just made it up) frankly isn’t an option. Yet, I think I have diagnosed why this condition has not only failed to cure itself, but is actually becoming more and more debilitating. It is because the frequency and duration of my hunting trips has become finite. As child and teenager, I could (with adult accompaniment) go hunting pretty much whenever a mentor could take me, which was honestly quite often and very much encouraged (with the exception of deer camp, that rite of passage was reserved for a later, more hotly anticipated date). Now, with the demands on my time being exerted by work and family, the prospect of time in the fields and forests is even more keenly anticipated.

I’m not from a particularly demonstrative family when it comes to emotions, but I feel as though my father, uncles, and other hunting mentors must have similar emotional responses to our family tradition of hunting. It is just that none of them had a forum such as this (or perhaps the inclination at all) to speak about such childlike giddiness.

But I don’t mind, because in some respects the expectancy and desire have become part and parcel with my hunting experience. Not only are the actual times spent in the field alone or with friends special, but the ways I pass the dreary days and weeks before hunting, what with all the toying with gear, and make the best laid plans, and yes even babbling inanely about how much I enjoy the anticipation, have all become part of the fabric of my hunting experience.

It is just what I do now.

So tomorrow, when 5pm rolls around, and the interminable meetings and prioritized tasks of my day job have been put mercifully to rest for another weekend then I will roll down the highway, listen to loud music, and practice train notes and push moans on my goose call every time I stop at a red light. Because those things are part of the hunt for me.

Then I’ll arrive at the farm and I’ll lay out my clothes and equipment in a utilitarian (and ever so slightly superstitious) fashion. Because those things are part of the hunt for me.

My cousins and hunting buddies will arrive and we’ll plan the morning’s agenda. We may have a beverage or two and we’ll laugh a fair bit. Because those things are part of the hunt for me and maybe it is for them too.

Then we’ll hunt, and we’ll eat, and then we’ll wake up and hunt some more. And then, when it is all done, we’ll have the memories and we’ll have the best laid plans for the next trip in just a few short weeks. The geese will be a little smarter and a little fewer (I hope) and we’ll be a little older, a little heavier, and a lot happier. And it is because we’ll be hunting together again, and that makes the anticipation, and the puttering around, and the all the mindless distractions we use to make ourselves happy in the off-season seem like distant foggy memories.

The return of hunting season just does that, and I am more than ready for it.

duck calling, duck hunting, goose calling, goose hunting, waterfowl hunting

The Primacy of Waterfowling

July 29, 2013 Shawn West Leave a comment

As with most things you’ve read here, what follows is a matter of opinion. If you and I are similarly-minded, then I imagine we are not going to have too much to debate in the below ramblings. If we are found to not share such ideals, then I defer to the time-proven axiom of “to each their own” and I can still share the field with you if you’d have me.

I haven’t hunted African plains game, and may never get the chance.

I am a neophyte by most standards in that I possess less than a decade in the turkey woods, although I am a full convert to that particular aspect of our religion.

My deer hunting experience is of less than a score of years, which is as much an accident of birth and the public policy at the time of my hunting certification as it is a function of my love of stalking the ghosts of the fall woods.

Small game was once a deep passion, although a shortage of suitable hounds and a personal disinclination as I grow older to spend time in cold winds and deep snow has dulled my desire to chase grouse and rabbits. Perhaps the acquisition of a sleek beagle may rekindle those fires, but for now they smolder low.

Moose hunting, while available, has always played second fiddle to deer hunting for me.

Predator hunting, while exciting and raw, often lacks the payoff of promised game meat for the eating.

Elk, bears of all fashions, antelope, and the like are all unavailable to me, for reasons of logistics, time, and finances respectively.

What the list above details are two things. First, there is a literal glut of riches available to the North American sportsman. Secondly, at least for me, is that all of the above opportunities finish behind the pursuit of waterfowl as the act that most defines my hunting experience.

My dad is a deer hunter. He loves the ducks dropping in and the geese turning and cycling down into a set up as much as I do, but if you asked him what he’d rather be doing, he would say deer hunting every time. I’ve had similar conversations with a couple of my cousins and friends and they all fall on the side of deer hunting, although there are a few that are fast becoming converts to the hallowed tradition of chasing wild turkeys.

Perhaps it is my instinctual desire to dissent from the group, perhaps it is my relative lack of success in killing deer and turkeys, or maybe, like the Grinch, my head isn’t screwed on just right. Whatever the case may be, hunting ducks and geese tops my list of preferred hunting trips, although that’s a lot like trying to rate pizza versus ice cream versus sex. I suppose you could prioritize them if you wanted to, but you really would never turn any of them down. Hunting is like that.

Carrying on.

It is true that I love waterfowling above all else, and frankly, what isn’t there to love? Sure the weather can be awful, but at the end of the day, you don’t have to go out in it if you don’t really want to. Yet time and time again, a multitude of duck and goose hunters are out in the most tragically terrible weather, getting frost-nipped, wind-whipped, and generally cold, soaked and miserable. And why is that, you ask? Two reasons: first the ducks and geese don’t seem to care; in fact it seems that often the hunting gets better the worse the climate is. But the secret, untold second reason is that waterfowlers need that lousy weather to make them feel like they are truly ‘hunting’. Just as deer hunters need the fall colours and the cool in the air, and houndsmen need the bay of a dog to set the atmosphere, so it is with the men and women that chase after webbed feet and billed birds. I’ve had good shoots on bluebird days, but the best ones that I recall had some pretty drizzly, damp and all around unpleasant weather. It just made it ‘feel’ right.

Another niche that I fit cozily into when it comes to duck and goose hunting is the calling. Although a strong argument can be made on behalf of a gobbler, few other animals respond to calling and decoys like waterfowl do. All my life I have been intrigued by the language of animals (and languages in general, but that’s another story), and the way that hunting allows me to more or less ‘talk’ with ducks and geese is a thrill that I simply cannot get enough of. Listening to the birds as they work, and watching their body language as they respond positively and negatively to the sounds you are feeding them is both education and exhilaration. My favourite memory from calling waterfowl came on a breezy, cool, sunny day in late September. Our camp group was working a small flock of about nine geese, and they were making wide circles as they eyed up our spread. As they made what turned out to be their second-last pass, I made a low moan on my call, and to my astonishment, one of the geese mimicked it exactly. Not similarly, not comparably, but precisely the same note, tone, and duration. Naturally, I made the same call again (which may shock those of my friends who accuse me of never making the same sound twice) and the goose answered back again with the same sound. So back and forth for five or six more sequences this goose and I made the same sounds. It would call then I would call the same note back, and as their broad circle tightened and then straightened into a final approach I had a ripple of adrenaline course through me. I was talking this bird, and the group that was with it, right into where we needed them to be. And that was the point. We took home five or six out of the group, and while I scratched down one of them, I can’t say for sure if the bird I got was the one that was communicating with me, or whether that bird was even in the bag at all. But it didn’t matter of course, because aside from the feeling of accomplishment that comes from tricking a supremely evolved specimen of wildlife into a trap, I knew that for even a few short minutes I was intentionally communicating with a wild animal using their language, which was beyond anything I had done or experienced before.

I consider waterfowl to be some of the most delicious wild game meat I’ve ever eaten. And I’m going to go so far as to be on record say something that some may find controversial. Geese are delicious too. Now I’ve heard from reputable sources that speckled-belly goose meat is the height of epicurean delights, and I’ve had some of the best roasted ducks out there (although the orgasmically tasty canvasback has long eluded me) but foremost I think Canada geese get a bad reputation when it comes to the plate. Now before I continue I will say this; I have eaten some absolutely atrocious Canada goose meat, but that particular platter was filled with birds that were primarily “suburban geese”, and I don’t mean geese with mortgages and family sedans. I was hunting with a friend on a farm that was just barely beyond the city limits of Guelph. I believe we were legally hunting by about 50 yards. We were helping out a farmer that my friend knew, and he had often complained of the geese, so we took a trip out to thin the numbers a bit. Upon scouting we found that the birds were spending most of their day at a local public park about three kilometers away. We shot three or four and upon consuming them the next day, I can safely say I have never eaten any wild game as unpleasant as those few birds. Although I think they were eating some grain on this farm, I attribute most of their flavour to them eating chemically fertilized grass and what I can only assume was their own feces for most of their days. Really “wild” geese, the kind that truly migrate and spend limited time in urban/suburban areas have never troubled me with their flavour. In fact, a good late season goose with a layer of corn and grain fed fat on them is so darn good roasted and stuffed with apples, lemons, and rosemary that I could never think of skinning them for their breast and leg meat. Early season geese aren’t as succulent in terms of that, and they usually are still a bit “pinny” as we say, so more often than not that meat goes into the grinder, which isn’t a bad way to enjoy the fruits of a goose hunt either. Last year we took a pin-feathered mallard drake that was not even two hours expired (talk about fresh organic!) and made a great little appetizer by butterflying the breasts and then pan frying them with the whole, skinned legs. We rarely go hungry during duck and goose season.

The atmosphere of the goose hunt itself also endears it further to me. I do enjoy the silent solitude of deer and turkey hunting, but silence is mandated by the nature of the prey. Deer, and to an even greater extent, wild turkeys have incredibly acute hearing. I’m not disputing the hearing of a duck or a goose, but I find the waterfowl hunting experience just slightly more gregarious for those doing the hunting. First off, we almost always do this a pretty large group. Five or more at a minimum. It is just too labour intensive with decoys, blinds, guns, ammunition and the assorted paraphernalia to not have many hands to make the work light. In fact some of us take it much lighter than others. Secondly this group mentality makes it easy to have a good time. We often just stand in a ditch or along a well-concealed fencerow and half-shout jokes and barbs at each other. We tell amusing stories about our spouses, friends of friends, or the hunting companions that have gone before us, some of whom have sadly departed. We laugh and giggle until we weep, we try out each other’s calls, and we generally have a raucous time, all the while eyeing the horizon and the heavens for birds. When we miss, we taunt and deride each other’s failures as human-beings, and when we succeed everyone claims the credit simultaneously, particularly if one of the many birds that hit the ground is wearing jewelry.

Since some of us purchased layout blinds, the experience has changed only slightly. We still do all of the above, we just do it from a reclined position.

I could wax poetic about the time-honoured history of waterfowling in North America, about how it built economies and industries, of how it nearly died as a tradition in the early 1900’s, and how it has staged a comeback. I could tell the indigenous inhabitants of North America’s legends related to ducks and geese that I have learned. I could write about the powers of survival possessed by ducks and geese (powers that I have read about, heard about, and witnessed personally). I could go on at length about the conservation successes originated by Delta Waterfowl and Ducks Unlimited, and I could lecture on our need to be even better conservationists to preserve our privilege to keep hunting ducks and geese. There is just so much to tell of and to write about. I’ve had more hunts than I can literally remember, and I’m not even 35 yet. Think of the stories I have and that everyone else has that go untold; those that hunker in saw grass blinds, corn rows, flooded rice, and sinkboxes.

I haven’t even talked about retrievers yet.

In the end though what I say is likely just things that have been said before and known of for ages. For my part I don’t need convincing. As someone who loves and studied history, there is just far too much tradition, both personal and in the preceding years for me to ignore.

For those that do need convincing though, think about those histories while you are making your own. And going forward, when you watch them lock up and drop in, as you thumb off the safety, rise and shout “Take ‘em!” or “Now!” or “Cut ‘em!” or whatever it is that you’ve made your war-cry, make sure that you commit those ones to your memory too.

Because when the hunt is over, that’s all we get to hang on to. Until the next day out duck hunting that is.