When Dead Ducks Fly
When I was growing up in Montana, outdoor adventures flowed like the waters of the Yellowstone. We rarely missed a chance to get outdoors, and we never missed a chance to hunt. One duck hunt stands out for the unusually durable drake my Dad shot — and my Mom hated!
With our very excited golden lab in tow, Dad and I sneaked toward a spring creek backwater slough along the Yellowstone. It was a routine we had become quite familiar with, and, at this point in the season, just another day of duck hunting — or so we thought.
When we stepped into range, mallards sprang quacking and splashing in every direction. Our guns went up, the dog ripped loose, and boom, boom, boom! As usual, we each fired three shells while marking falling birds. It was a beautiful sight to have our dog, Rebel, come springing back with a big greenhead flopping from his mouth. Rebel dropped the large drake at Dad’s feet and immediately I saw a new kind of excitement on Dad’s face. “He’s perfect,” Dad said as he stroked the soft feathers. “I’m going to mount this duck.” This was shaping up to be a great day.
After collecting the rest of our birds, we made our way back to our old, yellow, Ford pickup, and there we noticed Dad’s “perfect” mallard was still moving! We both looked at each other, half in amazement. Were we witnessing a rebirth?
Clearly the duck still had some life left, but we couldn’t ring its neck because, well, that might ruin the potential mount. “Poor fella,” Dad said as he quickly opened his tool box, grabbed a screw driver, and bonked the duck on the head with the handle. Then he gently folded the limp head back under the bird’s wing, and laid him carefully in the tool box. And we were off to the next slough.
Our sneak, jump, shoot, retrieve routine continued all morning until... we heard unidentifiable noises coming from the tool box. “It couldn’t be!” Dad said. We pulled over. Dad opened the box and there stood the mallard – bright eyed and curly tailed, pacing like a drunk sailor. “For the love of God, this duck’s got more lives than a cat!” Dad grabbed it by the bill and rapped it again, sharply, but not too hard. He didn’t want to ruin it for mounting. “Third times a charm.” This time he wrapped the bird carefully in a black garbage bag, a perfect package for the freezer, which is where we deposited it on arriving home.
A day later I heard Mom screaming in the garage where she was putting away a week’s worth of groceries. I ran to her rescue to find a drake mallard scuttling across the garage floor. Our duck with nine lives was on the loose! He made it out the door and onto the driveway and before I could grab him, he caught the wind in his wings and powered away into the night.
Mom was rattled. Incredulous. But growing furious as she stared into the open freezer. “What the…? Our meat! That fowl fowled all of our meat!” she cried. Dad rushed in and began scraping up the mess. Apparently, his perfect taxidermy duck that wouldn’t die had again reawakened from the dead, wriggled his way out of the garbage bag, and — loose as a goose — spent several hours soiling Mom’s neatly organized freezer. “You will never, ever, ever put another dead animal in any of my freezers!” Mom threatened.
Now, you can take several points away from this story, but the three most valuable are: 1. Make sure the animals you take are really dead. 2. If you’re going to freeze game whole for the taxidermist, don’t do it in Mom’s freezer. And 3. Take a lesson from that mallard and never give up!
Start planning your next adventure!
Mom was better with fish on a stringer than mallards in her freezer.
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