Family

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By GORDY GORDON, Editor/Publisher


If we stop and really think about it, no two waterfowlers are alike.

Even within a family or duck-blind buddies, no two individuals hunt or equip him or herself precisely the same as the others. We are set apart by preferences in duck guns, shells, decoys or even items as mundane as what's in the lunch bag -- and those are just the beginning.

Likewise, no two have identical passion for the birds or the games we play to bag them, or possess identical skills & knowledge & experience. If you doubt that, just listen to a blind-ful of duck-callers in action!

Yet when someone says "I'm a duck hunter," other members of The Brethren understand. We get it.

From whistler-shooters hugging icy rock shores in New England, to Deep South pin oak swampers and Midwest pond-jumpers, across the map to mallard-infested wheatlands of the Pac Northwest and posh California clubs with their sprigs and specks ... we are all totally different and yet all the same. We are Waterfowlers.

Sure, just like any family, there are wise elders and great uncles and pissants, sages and silly fools and good old boys (and girls) who offer little beyond an assurance they'll be "for" you if ever the world comes against you. As somebody (it escapes me who) once observed: "Yeah, this family has a few SOBs. But at least they are OUR SOBs." Same goes for Waterfowlers. We may bitch and moan about one or another. When the chips are down, we generally pull together for our common uncommon cause. Lord, let it always be so -- for our sakes and the sake of the birds themselves!

Our necks may tend to be reddish. Our most expensive footwear might be camo chest waders that cost the equivalent of a house payment. Our trucks are perpetually muddy, and home may be where the dog hair sticks to everything -- except the dog. Doesn't matter! I have known many truly great folks thru the years. But very very few of them have NOT been waterfowlers (or in some way connected.)

We are all kin, a big, muddy, generous-hearted, sleep-deprived, fascinating family ... bound by a common bond to this wonderfully varied and mystical lifestyle we know as Waterfowling.

--30--

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