What’s not so pleasant is sitting quietly in a duck blind and having steel shot from an unscrupulous group of waterfowlers rain down on you like a hail storm.
Such was the case a few years back while hunting a state wildlife area near Sacramento, California.My group managed to navigate the early-morning fog deep into this increasingly popular piece of public land, after which we set up decoys and waited for shooting time to commence.
We made our presence acutely known, talking loudly and waving our flashlights in every direction. Soon, another group of hunters, apparently oblivious to our presence (that’s my diplomatic interruption, anyway), set up 50 to 75 yards from us in the same hole.
At shooting time, a flock of widgeon, if memory serves, wheeled in the morning sky right between us, and a rapid volley of shotgun blasts echoed across the marsh. We didn’t fire a shot, but our friends certainly did, sending nontoxic pellets into our blind.
“Incoming,” someone yelled. We all scrambled as the pellets started to land.
The short story: Hunting public land is a self-regulating enterprise, and we regulated the situation. Still, we got lucky; the above mini drama was an accident, perhaps even a serious one, waiting to happen.
