High Tide in a Peasoup Fog

Mulak Reader - High Tide in a Peasoup Fog

As a decoy maker, I can tell you that the homemade goose decoys in this story were eventually abandoned in favor of the hollow-plastic kind. It’s not so much that they’re better decoys, but when you have to carry them across a marsh on your back, the difference becomes obvious. Even a lightweight cork decoys weighs in at 3 or 4 pounds when it’s the size of a Canada goose. Big Ernie currently holds a place of distinction on the cellar shelf at my nephew’s house. Ernie is still a good decoy, but as an overweight hunter, thankfully, he knew when to quit.
This story appeared in Ducks Unlimited magazine in 1981, and they used the pen & ink Hunter with Limit of Geese (originally done for Branta Canadensis) as the illustration.

HIGH TIDE AND A PEASOUP FOG

          Eastham in the fog: It's struggling with decoys in the pre-dawn blackness and hearing geese all around us, praying that they'll stay where they are for a while longer; It's wading in a tidal creek a half-step at a time; It's working up a sweat in our gunning clothes—Even a piece of cork can be heavy when it's the size of a goose decoy.
          The Golden retriever who owns my brother scares up a small flock of geese from a near-by pothole. Quietly the dark forms pass overhead on creaking wings. I glance at John and he, too, is looking skyward. We shake our heads at each other and return to unwinding anchor cords.
          We still know this decoy rig by name, these nine floating geese we've fashioned. They are the products of a previous time when every new decoy seemed to have its own personality, and thus, its own name. Our decoys seemed to emerge on their own from the wood and cork while we watched and worked, more spectator than sculptor. We've since progressed to a level where the birds we now carve look at least something like what we intend them to. But here are Lyndon and Lady Bird, and Gilbert, and Larry (the lopsided), and No-Neck Dave, and Buffalo Bill, and a hollow wood oversize brant that I re-painted as a goose—Willie Brant, of course.
          "Why don't you move Big Earnie farther out."
          I had made several other decoys before the bent-neck Canada we named Big Earnie, but they have all either been re-worked or retired. Through seniority, Big Earnie now holds the distinction of being the most senior veteran in any of our decoy rigs. And the heaviest. He is constructed of pieces of lifejacket cork epoxied together. He weighs in at eleven pounds. No wonder he floats like a real goose.
          Nine floating geese, complimented by a dozen plastic shell field decoys on stakes in the mud at the water's edge, make up our rig. Off to the side we've put a pair of blacks, just for effect. The duck season is closed, and today we're interested only in geese.
          We sit on our folding stools and wait out the darkness. Twenty minutes to go. We still hear geese, but they seem farther away now. The fog plays tricks with the sounds on the marsh: Across the flats, a mile or more away, we can hear some other hunters talking as they set up. A lone heron passes over, ghostlike in the gloom, and his surprised squawk is swallowed-up by the fog.
          "Have a few of these fifty-cent specials." My brother holds out our box of goose loads. We are using three-inch steel number 2s, and at better than eleven dollars per box it comes to a half-dollar each time we pull the trigger.
          Shooting time approaches, is upon us, and passes. The fog turns a slightly lighter shade of gray. We test our goose calls and are answered immediately. Geese approach, heard but unseen in the fog as they answer our calls, then pass behind us. We honk frantically. They return, still hidden in the gloom, pass beyond the rig and on down the marsh once again.
          It takes a minute for the adrenaline surge to pass.
          "Maybe they just can't find us." I shrug.
          "Who knows?" John looks at his goose call. "Maybe we told them to take a hike."
          The morning wears on. A sandpiper probes the mud, approaching ever nearer to us. At last John's dog can stand it no longer and rushes forward. The bird flits out over the decoys, then lands again a short ways from us. John's dog stares intently at the bird for a moment, weighing his chances, then returns and sits down heavily at my brother's side. The sandpiper continues to probe the shallows, oblivious to our presence.
          We continue to hear geese all morning as they work the marsh. The rising tide forces us to re-position our rig, and it seems that no sooner are we settled than the tide shifts the blocks around, and we must move them again. On two other occasions, we have flocks circling, perhaps within gun range, but we never see them. The fog has become thicker, rather than burning off as Don Kent predicted it would.
          For the umpteenth time this morning, I raise my call to answer what seems to be a distant goose.
          "Don't bother." John is disinterested. "That's those other guys—They haven't had any shooting either, so they're screwing around with their goose calls."
          Then, the answering calls seem closer. My brother listens intently, then, after a long moment, adds his calls to my own. The answers seem closer still.
          "It sounds like a single." John whispers.
          I raise an eyebrow in reply and keep calling. Earlier, we had flipped a coin to decide who would get the first single, and it had fallen my way: Hit or miss, near or far, I would have him all to myself.
          The honking is now in front of us. We peer into the peasoup-thick fog, but although our ears are zeroed-in on the source of the calling, our ears continue to draw blanks. Now the bird circles behind the rig, still calling. He is a lone goose, separated from his flock and, perhaps, his parents. You don't have to be a Cree Indian guide to talk in a young lost goose.
          And then... silence.
          We hold our breath, hearing only the roar of our own pulses.
          Nothing.
          "Damn!" I spit out my held breath in an exasperation.
          Suddenly the goose emerges from the fog, wings cupped and feet dangling as he coasts into the decoys. Because they are deceptively large, geese are often fired at when out of range. In close, they are huge. And at fifteen yards, a Canada goose can seem so big it scares you.
          He has his bill open to call when I shoot. There is no momentum to his fall, no tumble or glide. He simply comes down, dead weight, and hits among the decoys with a dull thump rather than a splash. He has landed on the back of Big Earnie, and both geese submerge for a moment, then surface like some great ocean beast coming up for air. Earnie rolls to one side and deposits his passenger in the salt creek, then rights himself and returns to his silent, patient duty.
          I close my eyes and once more see the Canada emerge from the fog, and for an instant I know again the scramble of thoughts in the moment before my reactions take over. I never can remember getting to my feet, putting the safety off, or pulling the trigger—only the bird out beyond the muzzle.
          John's dog emerges from the water to deliver the goose, and for just one moment I know the supreme satisfaction of having done something completely right. It is a feeling that far surpasses having guessed correctly or simply being lucky, and, more than any other reward, makes a man a sportsman.

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