Most duck hunters who reside in north central Texas or Oklahoma do not consider the opening of early teal season as anything more than an opportunity to make sure all the gear that will be required for the "real" opening of duck season is hunt-worthy and ready to go. It reminds me of the days when I was much younger and viewed the opening of archery deer season as an early tuneup for the "real" opening of deer season. Now that I am older, I understand that archery season has much to offer on its own merits! In the case of teal season, I have also realized that it offers much to appreciate for those willing to brave mosquitoes that are often larger than the birds themselves, snakes of all variety, temperatures that are often close to triple digits while wearing clothes that could keep a guy warm in sub-freezing December weather and lastly hurricane force rain and wind! Opening day of the 2008 teal season was one the I had looked forward to for several months. It was going to be the first time to take my son-in-law, Tim Williamson, on a duck hunt. Tim is the Weapons Officer on a US Navy submarine and was moving to a new duty station. He and my daughter and grandsons were spending a few weeks in Dallas attending his sister's wedding and equally important (sorry, Lindsy!) participating in what we call the Great 2008 Teal Season Opener!
We planned to hunt in Oklahoma, with a friend of Mark's named Luke Dunlap. Luke is a great hunting buddy...well, he is pretty much a great guy and the hunting part makes it even better. Now one of the things that none of us counted on was the fact that the women in our lives...my wife (and mother to Mark and mother-in-law to Tim), my daughter (and wife to Tim and sister to Mark) and Tim's mother would find anything amiss in the plan to hunt opening morning of teal season. Coincidentally, teal season corresponded with Tim's sister's wedding day! I assume most of you can see where we failed to appropriately plan here? Anyway, as we got closer to the actual day (teal season and Lindsy's wedding) the weather forecasters began to make evil prognostications about some minor storm in the Gulf of Mexico named Ike. The forecast was for gale force (45-50 knot winds) and heavy rains as far north as Oklahoma and Arkansas. Being the hale and hearty hunters we are, the weather did not frighten us at all. Therefore, 3 A. M. that morning found Tim and I driving to Oklahoma to meet up with Mark and Luke. We met and headed to the spot we had chosen for our opening day salvo. Arriving at the boat ramp, we loaded up and headed for the lower end of an old Red River oxbow lake. We had decided that Luke and Tim would hunt together on the lower end of the lake and Mark and I would hunt together on the upper end. After dropping Tim and Luke off at their blind, Mark and I set up on the upper end and got decoys arranged and got the boat hidden and settled down to wait for what we knew would be a morning filled with the duck world equivalent to World War II dive bombers...teal! The weather was muggy, foggy and hot, with no rain or wind! It took Mark and me about an hour or so to get our limit of teal. After that we sat and talked, waiting for Tim and Luke to finish up their limits. As we listened to the shooting from their end of the lake we realized that the shooting seemed much more sporadic than we expected. At about this time, Mark decided that he should take the boat and check on Tim and Luke. In the meantime, I would gather up our decoys. About 45 minutes later, as I finished gathering up decoys, I heard Mark pull up with the boat. He killed the motor and hopped out of the boat to come give me a hand. I noticed that neither Luke or Tim had much to say. Mark grinned and said, "Dad, I have good news and bad news!" I said, "Okay, give it to me." Mark laughed and replied, "Your son-in-law is alive, but your shotgun is dead!" After expressing my happiness that Tim was okay, about 5 0r 6 seconds, I asked what happened to my shotgun. At this point, Tim holds up a twisted piece of wood and metal that one time passed for a nice Spanish-made over and under! Now to this day, Luke and Tim have yet to confess completely what happened. I guess duck blinds are like Las Vegas...what happens there stays there! I suppose the other thing this all proves is that I apparently do love Tim like a son, because only Tim Williamson or Mark Miller could get away with destroying my shotgun and still hunt with me! Oh, about the wedding? Turns out we made it back in plenty of time for the wedding. And that nasty little storm in the Gulf? It dropped about 7 inches of rain on the wedding, but it turned out to be a great wedding and we all love Lindsy's husband!
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