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by Clint Robus It is amazing how little you can see in front of your face at 5:30 a.m., but I was in good hands with duck hunters Nels Swenson, his son Ty and their two-year-old black lab, Mack. Good thing too, because I am was green to duck hunting as the camouflage on my guides’ hunting gear. While we drove to a little, hidden pond outside Sun Prairie, Nels said to me, “We may get something, we may not, we’ll see.” The secluded pond, tucked safely behind a cornfield, is the secret spot of the father, son and dog duck hunting trio, as they have hunted here before. The parallel, while opposite, is intriguing. As the ducks prepare to leave and head south for the winter, the hunters re-visit spots of past success. The ducks return in the spring to mate and the hunters return each fall. Whether the parties feel connected or not, both always come back. With the season set to re-open at about 6:45 a.m., we needed some time to get set up and hunkered down. Wisconsin is split up into a northern and southern zone for the waterfowl hunting season. The northern zone opened Sept. 25 and continues through Nov. 23, while in the southern zone (our location) the season opened Oct. 2 and ran through Oct. 10, re-opened Oct. 16 and runs through Dec. 5. We drove down a bumpy path and parked the truck where the little pond started. As Nels and Ty unloaded the decoys and skiff, Ty grabbed the small boat with one hand and dragged it down to the water’s edge. Nels leaned over to me, “That’s the nice part about having a 19-year-old son.” Ty paddled down to the southeast end of the pond, dropping decoys along the way. While Nels, Mack and I walked down along the west side of the old, abandoned trout rearing farm, Nels kept calling for Mack, as the young lab was continually sidetracked by the different smells of the marsh. I just tried to keep up on the overgrown path and stay in the tire marks to avoid getting pitched into a pile a burdocks or weeds. Nels found his makeshift blind from a year ago. It was broken down a bit, but in short time he patched it up. Ty and I set up a few yards down from Nels and Mack, preparing to burrow into the tall grasses and reeds, a few feet from the water. It was still inky black and we had about 45 minutes or so before the season opened. We mulled around, talking life, football, politics and poker. Ty is a quiet guy who attended UW-Eau Claire for the fall semester last year, where his dad said he “majored in Texas Hold’Em.” Ty has since been back home, working with his dad. He is planning on heading back to school, still unsure of what he wants to do, but he certainly appreciates the outdoors. Ty loves fishing, he says “there is nothing like hooking a Muskie,” and thinks “pound for pound, bass [fishing] is the best.” He and a buddy frequently fished Lake Wabesa in Madison this summer and Ty said he “must have cleaned about 120 bluegills.” Nels, a carpenter and contractor by trade talked about Ducks Unlimited (DU) in Wisconsin. He is zone chairman for the Oregon and DeForest chapters and area chairman for Dane County. Nels has been duck hunting with different frequencies since the 1960s. The Oregon chapter just celebrated its 21st anniversary, but Nels said DU membership is “kind of shrinking.” It is made up of all volunteers, “not just a bunch of duck hunters,” he said. “Ducks Unlimited really is not all about duck hunting. It is about conserving, preserving and restoring what wetlands we have.” Kent Van Horn, a migratory game bird ecologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, attests to DU’s importance to waterfowl ecology in the state. Obviously, the DNR is a state agency while DU is a private group, but Van Horn said DU “has been an important source in waterfowl preservation, primarily habitat.” |
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Duck hunt 
