Hunting buddy

     This past weekend was a whirlwind to say the least!  Before we get into the details I'll give you the short story just in case you want to stop reading right here and get on with your day, I drove 730 miles to shoot 5 coots.  Now if you know anything about waterfowl hunting at all then your on the floor rolling with laughter right about now, or you might think that's a little ridiculous to drive that far in three days to hunt anything in which case you'd still be on the floor laughing your butt off.  Well I don't blame you.  I had grand visions of this being an epic waterfowl hunt that I would remember for years to come, although I wont soon forget the adventure, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

     It all started when dad and I drew swan tags for the Pacific flyway of Montana and planned a trip back to Freezeout Lakes where we have had quite a bit of success in years past.  I've already got one swan a couple years ago and I had no real desire to shoot another one but I knew putting in for the tag would at least get us out there and give my old hunting partner Duchess one more swan song, pun intended:)  She turned 12 this year and it is the first year in all 12 of them that she has started to show the signs of an aging dog so I wanted to make this a trip she would remember as well.  Dad and I got to Choteau late Thursday evening and went straight to bed so we would be well rested for the morning hunt.  The next morning as we sat on the bank of the lake and waited for the sun to come up we could hear a few swans on the water so our excitement began to rise.  Our hopes were crushed just as quickly as they rose though when about a half hour after the sun came up all 20 of the swans in the county lifted off the water and disappeared into the sky, never to be seen again!  Now as you may have figured out if there's no swans in the area then our hunt was pretty well doomed.  So we scrambled with some texts to Curtis down in Butte to see if there were any birds at Warm Springs and when he had his neighbor go check and reported back to us that there were thousands of them on the water, we packed up our stuff and headed south.

     We got to Butte Friday afternoon just in time for an evening hunt of pass shooting as birds came back to the water, this resulted in nothing so we made a plan for the following morning and headed back to Curt's.  The next morning we set out the decoys in a pond and had no luck drawing any ducks into our spread because there simply were no ducks in the air!  With it so warm still there just hasn't been any birds come down from up north so the hunting was pretty poor.  We relocated to a bank along another pond though for some late morning pass shooting and got 5 coots before we gave up for the weekend.  All in all the entire weekend was one of those classic hunting trips that seem to happen far too often for us Gannon's that result in little to no action but a pretty good story.  Every failed hunt has it's silver linings however and this one's was we got to spend a little time with the Skannons, and I got home a day early so I got to hang out with my in-laws for a night as they were here visiting Kelli during my hunt. 

     The biggest thing that happened on this trip that I was not happy with was the stark realization that my number one duck hunting buddy Duchess might be on the tail end of her hunting days.  I've known for years that she is not getting any younger and that this was bound to happen but each year that has come and gone she hasn't slowed down one bit, so I was kind of hopeful that she would stay the same until she wasn't with us anymore.  It's been one week since we left for our hunt and she's still walking like she's a little sore, and as she struggled to find the birds we had shot in the thick cattails I wonder if her senses are starting to slip just a little as well.  There's not many things worse than watching someone you love get older, all we can do is keep them comfortable and hope that they are not in too much pain.  When I was sitting on the bank with Duch, under the big blue sky, I couldn't help but think just how lucky I've been to have her in my life.  She has seen more tragedy in her life than most dogs would in three lifetimes yet she's stuck by my side through it all.  We sometimes joke that shes semi robotic and is on this earth for one purpose, to retrieve, as much as we joke about it I kind of envy her, at least she knows what her purpose is.  And she's been damn good at it!!  

     So as frustrating as this hunt was I still came home and started scouting areas around here for some good hunting with easy retrieving so I can get my old hunting partner out there as many times as her old body will allow her.  I can only imagine that is exactly what she would ask me to do if she could.  

Remember, even when things don't go exactly as planned there is fun to be had!