My earliest memory of hunting features a cool fall breeze skating across a remote forest lake. The wind swirled in the canopy, and yellow oak leaves drifted in the wind like a thousand deflated balloons. One landed at my feet as I paddled in a beat-up fiberglass canoe with my dad. He let me skip school that morning, and I remember the paddling keeping me awake. The stars glimmered, and the silhouettes of Atlantic white cedars reached up to them like giant black mountains. A great horned owl echoed from some distant perch, and a beaver slapped its tail against the water right off the bow of our canoe. The noise broke the forest’s serenity, sending my body and our boat into a full-blown reactive jolt. 

By sunrise, I figured out what that whole morning was all about. Whistling wings ripped through the trees, and primordial squeals rang across the water. This trip was no predawn nature tour. The birds flew high against the pink morning sky, and a few broke off over our decoys. As I could make out their brilliant shades of green, blue, white, and chestnut, my dad rang off a few shots.