Snipe Hunt

I am not a hunter. Never have been and likely will never be one.

But I went “bird” hunting yesterday for the second time in my life. I put “bird” in quotes because it was really “duck” hunting but real “bird” hunters do not call it “duck” hunting. The proper vernacular is “bird” hunting. You shoot “birds”, not ducks. Now you know. Should you find yourself in a conversation with a duck hunter you can speak the proper lingo and not sound like an idiot.

This was the second time I had been bird hunting. The first time was in the Utah desert looking for a bird called a Chukar. I learned after this hunt that Chukars were imported from Afghanistan and now live in the desert regions of the west. I never saw a Chukar on this hunt, other any other bird for that matter. My friend, Tom, never fired a shot. His dog never pointed at a bird. Nothing. I was convinced this was a snipe hunt, although it did make for a nice hike in the autumn Utah sun. Remember snipe hunts from your childhood days? I finally went to Cabela’s where they have stuffed wildlife on display in the store. Sure enough, they had a Chukar.

But the snipe hunt….oooppps, I mean Chukar hunt, is for another blog day.

Yesterday was a duck hunt, ah, I mean we were hunting for “birds”. I was really going along for the experience and my version of “shooting” birds was to take photographs.
Tom, who we will keep anonymous in this blog, is a hard core “bird” hunter and takes this passion of his very seriously. Since Tom did not fire a shot or get a bird all day, I don’t want to embarrass him by disclosing his real identity. But Tom, you know who you are.

The day started by meeting Tom at 5:00 am at his house. This meant getting up at 4:00 am to gather up my photography gear and put on my Iraqi thermal underwear (that’s right, my brother gave my Army issued thermal underwear when he was on assignment in Iraq. Iraq is in the hot desert but the Army insisted all those going to Iraq be issued thermal underwear. This underwear is awesome and great for skiing, so thank you U.S. Army!).

The wildlife experience began early. On the drive to Tom’s house I met up with eight doe and a big buck deer with a huge rack (a rack is the antlers on the deer’s head). I thought to myself, only in Utah, eight women and one man. I am sure the doe were all sister-wives along with their husband for a pre-dawn walk. I had to stop the car and wait for them to cross the road before I could move on.

Once we arrived at the wetlands where Tom hunts, we put on headlamps and hauled the gear to the “blind”. I learned that the blind is a place you sit in camouflage hiding from the birds until you pop out and shoot them. I was only told about the popping out and shooting part because I never actually saw it happen as Tom never fired a shot all day.

I have to confess I knew about the blind concept but was expecting something a little less primitive. I thought at least there would be wood floors, perhaps a little propane heater, camo Barko lounge chairs, you know, some of the basics. Instead, the blind is nothing but a roughly made burlap camouflaged tent sitting over shallow cold marsh water. We sat on folding camo stools for the next twelve hours staring at plastic decoy ducks sitting in the water in front of us.

Everything has to be camouflaged. I could tell Tom was worried about my black camera bags so we tucked them under the burlap camo cover and out of the water. I wore camo waiters, camo coat, and a camo hat. Tom gave me camo make-up paint to cover my face. It took me two or three attempts to get the paint just right. I just couldn’t get over that the face paint came in a little plastic case called a “camo compact”. You know women’s make-up compacts? The camo compact was the same thing, little mirror included, but minus the little brush for blush. I guess you don’t need blush when you are camouflaged.

We did see birds fly overhead, much too high to shoot at, and a few Tom tried to coax down from on high with his assortment of duck calls and whistles but with no success. Even robo-duck, a decoy duck mounted on a stick in the middle of the marsh with his mechanical, flapping wings that are wirelessly operated to simulate a duck landing in hopes of attracting other ducks to this particular marsh, didn’t work. The redeeming value of my bird education came when Tom taught me the difference between a flock of ducks and a flock of seagulls. The velocity of ducks flapping their wings is at a much faster rate than seagulls. I feel better now knowing this important difference.

At least a shot fired was fired over the course of the day, though not from Tom’s gun. The great thing about photography is that there is always something interesting to shoot. I think Tom was a little annoyed that he came away empty-handed and I got some terrific captures. Or he might have been just cold.

Either way, it was a great day taking photographs and being with my friend Tom. I look forward to processing up more of the images I captured in addition to the ones posted here.

As for Tom, rumor has it from a good source that he went back to the marsh to hunt for birds again today. As for this snipe hunter, I am staying home by the warm fire.

Cheers,
Dale