Duck hunt
Forget the Nintendo zapper gun and that snickering dog, real duck hunting is no video game.

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.”

Wisconsin is no slouch when it comes to Ducks Unlimited membership. In 2003, Wisconsin was first in grassroots income, total members and total sponsors in the U.S. Ducks Unlimited does an enormous amount of good in Wisconsin. They helped conserve more than 68,000 acres of wetlands in Wisconsin last year and according to Van Horn, the “major concern with waterfowl is habitat.”

“When agriculture and politics change, it has a major impact on breeding waterfowl,” Van Horn said. “There has been a lot of progress, a lot of conservation. There are programs to set aside wetlands, but they can be temporary. In the long run, we need to protect the breeding habitats.”

A breeding habitat is exactly what Wisconsin is. The state falls in the Mississippi flyway, an area that consists of 14 states and three Canadian provinces, and Wisconsin is part of the production section of the flyway. The states to the south provide migration habitats, but Wisconsin provides essential breeding grounds, which is why Nels is committed to DU.

“That is where my commitment is right now, to Ducks Unlimited,” Nels said. “I do a lot of volunteer work because I think what they do is important. I know that 86 cents out of every dollar hits the ground and that is what it’s all about. More habitats mean more birds in the air, not just ducks.”

This is no Nintendo duck hunt. Forget the crystal clear, blue skies and serene setting. With a brisk, light breeze blowing out of the southwest and a light drizzle coming down, the duck gods could not have provided better weather for the morning hunt. “It’s perfect weather,” Ty said as the rainy, overcast and windy conditions pushed migrating ducks south. It also helps ducks stay on the move in the area. On a nice day, a duck will sit on a pond until it needs to feed about mid-day. But on a day like today, they tend to hop from pond-to-pond.

Ty and I sat motionless, not saying much as we scanned the sky looking for ducks. Duck hunters keep their faces down as much as possible, as it only takes a little white face to cause a duck to “flare off,” hence the need for a hiding spot and camouflage. Duck hunting is like a giant game of cat and mouse, with the hunter inviting the duck to fly in, all while convincing it the hunter does not exist. But it also draws similarities to deer hunting. “You’ve got to find a good spot,” Ty said.

Unfortunately, it appeared we were not alone. Ty spotted another decoy at the north end of the pond, a spinner. He is not particularly fond of these decoys; he feels they scare ducks off more than draw them in. Despite Ty’s reservations and blind battling with the other hunter, we finally got our first shot of the morning.

At about 7:45 a.m. a pair of mallards came in low over the water, heading right toward us. Ducks land into the wind and our position on the pond was almost perfect. Duck hunting requires you to not only be patient, but it also requires a quick, accurate shot. Ty snapped up and fired, hitting a mallard hen, just as it was about to touch down. Nels missed his shot on the drake mallard and it broke off right above our heads. “You see that?” Ty asked excitedly. “That duck was all spread out and had its skids down and ready to land.” Then the fun began, as Mack exploded into the water in search of the fallen duck.

While a little misguided at times, Mack is a 30-pound black ball of pure energy and certainly brings enthusiasm to the table. Both Nels and Ty remarked to me on different occasions that sometimes Mack gets so excited after retrieving a duck, “he starts shaking.” The Swenson’s old duck hunting dog, a gun-shy golden retriever, does not come out much anymore. It’s a shame, Nels said “Golden retrievers have the best noses and she was a fast swimmer.” He wants to take both her and Mack out sometime soon, hoping she will get over her fears when she sees how much fun Mack has duck hunting.

It took a few aptly placed rocks close to the floating carcass before Mack finally found the duck to bring it in, but no matter. We had our first duck of the morning. Bag limits in Wisconsin restrict you to six ducks a day, no more than four mallards, only one of which can be a hen. You can fill out your bag with a max of one black duck, two wood ducks, two redhead ducks and three scaup. So no more hen mallards today.

But we did not see many ducks throughout the rest of the morning. Ty and the unknown hunter continued to battle on duck calls, but nothing appeared. “I’m surprised we haven’t seen any wood ducks,” Ty said. “But they fly south pretty quick; they don’t stick around long.” Knowledge is possibly the most important tool of a duck hunter. Because of bag limits, a hunter needs to know the difference between wood ducks, mallards and blue-winged teals, as well as differences between genders.

The DNR has conducted breeding surveys for the last 31 years and have solid data on mallard, blue-wing teal and wood duck populations in Wisconsin. Van Horn said, through banding data, more than 60 percent of mallards harvested in Wisconsin were born here. Mallards, by far, constitute the most abundant bird in hunter’s bags during the waterfowl season. During the 30 odd years of breeding surveys, there has been a general increase in breeding duck populations, especially mallards. The DNR does not have as much banding data on wood ducks, but Van Horn says the majority of the population comes from Wisconsin and has seen a solid, steady increase in population as well. The one species of concern is the blue-wing teal, the only population that is decreasing, and Van Horn says this concerning trend is similar across the country. But Van Horn says that waterfowl hunters are critical in waterfowl preservation.

Wisconsin averages about 75,000 waterfowl hunters a year and Van Horn says duck hunters see the importance in preserving habitat for waterfowl species and are important on the ground for habitat work. An enthusiastic, passionate group, Van Horn says, “They are a good bunch to work with.”

As the sun broke through the clouds and the drizzle ground to halt, the ducks seemed to catch on to our plan. For father and son and their hyper-kinetic dog, duck hunting satisfies numerous hungers. For Ty it is about the experience and watching Mack retrieve a downed duck. For Nels it is a little bit of everything.

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