Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/299259
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 4 I n the blind and ready now, the three of us, while Larry secrets the skiff to aft. In the enchanted few moments cracking daybreak, anticipation at fever pitch, we are silent. Relishing the promise between hope and happen. Listening for the high, evanescent sizzle of wings. While the long dusky line of decoys bobs and tacks restlessly across the waves, and the swells slap unremittingly against the shore. First light is palely rising, the nativity of another day. The morning will break clear. The faint fore-glow of the sun collects under the fleecy cloudbank to the east. Not for long. The wind will not allow it, shredding the lemon clouds to tatters and leaving them to coagulate into bedsheet layers of gunmetal gray. Soon the sky broods sullen and low, as less slowly the light grows. It came to us then, as clearly as its dawning . . . the gift and realization. This was the old-time Chesapeake, classic and reborn, and we were gathered up into it gumboots, oilskins and wool. "Great day in the mornin'," Larry murmured. "We're gonna murder 'em!" he said almost regretfully. Now we can just begin to see in the murky dawn, scarcely hear above the gusts . . . waves of passing birds! Pairs, fours, tens, speeding, sky-blackening bands of twenty and thirty. Riding a tail wind, ripping by. Thick clouds of bluebills, traveling hard and high. Now, big ducks, lugging mallards, scorching sorties of teal and floating a-high spoonies. A couple of big ducks, maybe blacks, sneak by low, whip back, bound for backwater. The heavens are teeming with restless fowl. Greenies buzz our set, catch us fiddle-footed. Moments before a flight of mallards banks and yields, stooping without hesitation. Up come the guns, as the birds realize their folly, fight for air, climb and flare. Whoom, whoom-whoom, whoom! Two birds crumple, shatter the water, another drops on a long diagonal. First blood. As midst the melee, fluted notes rise in the cold air. "Geese!" we clamor in unison. Now we have them. Maybe 15 together, wedged due north and on our heading. Answering our calls. "Get ready. They're turning," Larry warns. "They're comin', they're comin'." An image of profound and indelible beauty as they swing, sluff the wind, counter and cup. Drop to half-speed. Hang and glide, lift and lower, locked in flawless harmony, sifting the air and closing beneath a rhythmic fluted melody. We are waiting, still suddenly they are upon us. A little tall, but . . . Whoom, whoom-whoom, whoom. How in hell is it possible? Not a bird has fallen. Larry's face droops to despair. Guns empty, we're dumbfounded. Small chance for regret. Because F rom left: The author, C.d. Clarke and Bob Timberlake each hold a perfect brace of canvasbacks from their spectacular waterfowl hunt on the icy waters of Chesapeake Bay. They also gunned bluebills, black ducks, mallards and Canada geese on their January hunt.