Duck opener has come and gone, yet I’m still excited to hit the slews even after a long spent weekend. Many of us were up early enough to use the moon to guide us to our honey holes. Others had their mitts glued to the guns until the clock struck 4. Whether many didn’t take a poke at birds, or some stuffed their freezers, the fact is we got a taste, and we want more.

The leaves are changing, days are shorter, and a wind that is now eager to freeze the morning dew. A time when a hunter’s instincts rules all. Now that opening weekend has passed, our biggest struggle is too find more time to get out. And when were deemed lucky enough to hunt, the question still remains, am I truly prepared?

I for one, always over pack for opener. Am I insecure about my hunting abilities? Have I been diagnosed with OCD? Am I scared to fight the elements? To be honest, I’m not sure what the cause is. But I’ll tell ya, come high noon and I’m rowing a boat loaded down, my thought process quickly adverts to what needs to go. Once I’m home, and airing out my gear that’s somehow wetter than my dog, thanks to packing my canoe like an ore vessel heading out on the Great Lakes, I really get to thinking.

After reclaiming a new island to set upon in the morning. My dad and I needed to be on point with what goes and what stays, seeing our best chance of dropping birds was obviously on the far end of the 500 acre duck lake that were hunting. Unfortunately, our 90 pound retriever was staying in the boat. Although this is just as much her holiday as it is mine, lunking her around wild rice just isn’t exactly what I enjoy.

So then it was what gear, clothing, decoys, and amount of shells we needed. Already, with a dog, there isn’t much wiggle room to slip items in. Day 2, I wanted to be able to move, and move fast if we were going to have to. With hundreds of birds flying around, we still needed a lot of shells, because I mean, it was opener weekend. Who doesn’t want to blow off a year of hunting anxiety? But with that, what really needed to stay?

My dad and I scouring the horizon for some movement. But like the photo shows, we didn’t have any luck. Had to keep moving to find the ducks.

Saturday, we used some decoys but the weather did not cooperate with us and using them. I believe most of Minnesota was covered in fog, a heavy fog for most of opener morning. Of course this added some difficulty in spotting birds before they were in range. Birds were dropping in quick, but by the moment our guns were drawn, they were gone through the fog once again. If we were having troubles marking them, there was no way they could find our decoys.  With a weather report that had some similarities, we left the decoys in the dust on our second day out.

Like a rookie (that I am), I wore cotton out on opener.  It was a wet, cold morning. Using a push/pull to get to our spot because our oars couldn’t break through the rice, getting decoys out into the water, and finally clearing a shooting blind, I was sweating like a fat kid jumping rope in an attic. My cotton shirt stuck to me like a leech, my underwear was a soup bowl that I had to keep quiet about as the morning chill came upon us. Day 2, I went a more commando direction. Was I naked under my bibs? Of course not, but I sure wasn’t wearing more than I had too. All I have to say is, thank god for polyesters and the new revolutionized apparel that hunters are able to possess these days.

Now that we had no ‘coys’, less clothes, we still had some bulk in our bags from the day prior. In an age of electronics, and gizmos, its hard to get away with the creative ways of recording your moments hunting. Personally, I had just gotten a GoPro and have an addiction with getting all the hookups. Unfortunately, that’s the baggage I’m talking about. Have unorthodox plastic bulging about in your bag, makes it tough to get at other necessities. After an early goose season and some clays, I have noticed my head mount is really the only mount I use. Specially, not having the time between flocks passing by to switch accessories, I gave up. I stuck with my head-mount, grabbed a few batteries and left the rest at home. Now, the next part that I had a problem with leaving out of my bag, was the candy. As there is nothing better than having a snickers bar, I didn’t need to have enough to feed the neighborhood kids on Halloween.

Having less is more, and as we continue to go out and endure our struggles of what is actually needed, hunts become much easier to do. We won’t be waking up as early to pack our boats and getting our blinds set up. We’ll be busting on top of the water and cutting the wild rice. Even though its easier to sleep at night knowing you have everything checked off on your to-do list, you’ll be in bed much earlier the next day after beating yourself up all day foraging across to your intended spot. Be concise, be prepared, and make sure you communicate with your hunting partners. There is no reason to have doubles of things you do not need in the beginning.

But it’s Tuesday night, and I need to get packing for Saturday’s morning hunt. Good luck to everyone going for their waterfowl.

(Here’s a video that I was able to get on opener, using my GoPro with the head-mount)