10 YEARS OLD
Grandpa, Dad and Brother Eric all pile out of the trucks. I get out and Dad tells me "Don't slam the door". No one can see the pond but everyone is hunched over in the sneak position. The pond is just over the berm and we can hear the ducks splashing and playing in the pond. The hunters line up while getting ready to say "hi guys". I keep having to be reminded to stay behind the hunters. "It's just not fair, I want to be involved", I think to myself, "I can't wait to be part of the shooting group". The hunters jump the pond and I watch where the ducks fall. After the shooting I run back to the truck to release the dogs.
We get back to the truck and move on to the next lake. Since this one is a lake that is too big to jump, Grandma and I will trek around and scare the lake. We walk to the cow trails and get to the point by the lake where we jump out and yell at the birds and get them to fly over the hunters. We see birds fly and yell "heeeerrrree theeeyyyyy coooommmeeee". A few seconds later we hear the guns go off over the horizon like a distant war zone. We start to make our way back to the trucks, and I ask Grandma, "How many do you think they got?" Grandma replies, "I guess we will see."
We get back to camp with all the birds and like always I help all the hunters pluck the birds, but I am unaware of the impending change that is about to fall upon me. Dad tells me you get to gut this year. I wasn't exactly excited about it. Dad says "if you shoot you gut." Since I wanted to be shooting in the next couple years I got down to gutting.
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Without realizing it, the dues I put in as a gutter, and the opportunities with Grandma teaching me how to scare the lakes, let me learn the steps I needed to know to become a successful hunter later in life.
Part 1 (Before Memories)
Part 2 (5 Years Old)
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