Tori McCormick's Fightin' Irish Blog

One Year Later: Remembering Buddy

2011-11-30T07:29:00.001-08:00

He died on a Wednesday at 8:47 a.m.

I hustled Buddy’s 68 pounds from my truck’s passenger seat into the vet’s office and laid him on the stainless steel table, his aged and atrophied body on full display.

I can still feel him cradled in my arms, how his dead weight felt heavier than I expected.

He could no longer walk or control any of his bodily functions. His breathing was sporadic and labored. For each breath, his diaphragm would hit bottom with a muffled thud and contract ever so slightly. He moaned with each exhale, like he had repeatedly the night before.

“He won’t feel a thing,” said the veterinarian. “He’ll drift off like he’s going to sleep. He won’t feel a thing.”

As Buddy lay on the table, I looked into his eyes, his cold nose pressed against my own. Buddy had that unmistakable 10,000-mile stare, the kind soldiers get when they’ve seen too much combat. Buddy’s eyes were glossy and lifeless and resigned. The cancer, diagnosed only two short weeks before, was, little by little, stealing him from me.

The vet inserted the needle into his right leg. Buddy did not flinch. He just stared into my eyes, existing, as he was, in that borderland between life and death.

“It won’t be long now,” said the vet, his stethoscope listening to Buddy’s waning heartbeat. “It won’t be long.”

When Buddy was eight months old, he made his first retrieve. It was a dandy, though not by design. I was hunting the flood plain of the James River, near Aberdeen, South Dakota. The river’s main stem was a watery tempest, swollen and roiling, deep and dangerous. The shallow, docile water that spilled over its banks created perfect waterfowl habitat, and the blue-winged teal that took refuge there were as thick as summertime mosquitoes.

I had Buddy on a check chord, staked into the muddy ground behind my makeshift blind. I wanted him to observe, absorb and learn.

The morning was shaping up nicely. I killed two drake blue-wings right away, and retrieved them myself as Buddy looked on from behind the blind. He marked both birds, and his quivering body language (and occasional whimpering) suggested he didn’t much like or appreciate being corkscrewed into the ground.

Buddy had freedom on his mind.

After I retrieved the second bird, a lone Canada goose glided silently into shooting range. I didn’t see the bird right away, but Buddy did. He sat statuesque in the blind, his head swiveling slightly as he tracked the birds’ flight path, his tail, like a windshield wiper, fanning the muddy ground.

When I shouldered my shotgun the bird was already behind the blind and heading toward the river. The smart move, in hindsight, would have been to pass on the shot. I didn’t. Instead, as if driven by Pavlovian instinct, I snapped off a round and winged the bird.

A sick feeling instantly came over me: The birds’ downward trajectory suggested it would land in the pulsing river, and it did.

It did with an echoing splash that seemed to distill all of Buddy’s disparate thoughts into a singular motivation: retrieving that lone, winged Canada goose.

In a fit of puppy pique, Buddy rocketed from the blind, pulled up the stake from the muddy ground, and was off, the check chord and stake bouncing wildly behind him like beer cans dangling from a wedding-day car.

Freedom sometimes has its price, and I was instantly worried the river’s mercurial current would swallow him whole.

A British Labrador, Buddy was smaller and less overtly high strung compared to most American-bred Labs. Still, his passion for retrieving (dummies all, at least until this day) could not be satiated. When a bird was down, he always summoned the inner drive to do what he was bred—and loved—to do.

Buddy dove into the river and, seemingly in seconds, had the withering Canada goose in his mouth. He swam with a cocksureness and athleticism that I’ll never forget.

Buddy ambled up the modest river bank with ease, his glossy black coat and rippled muscles glistening in the morning sun. He never once dropped the big bird, the size of which blotted him (head and body) out completely. It was a sight to see.

Seconds later, Buddy dropped the bird near the blind. It would have been perfect had he delivered it to hand like he had been taught. Still, perfection has many incarnations, and Buddy’s retrieve was perfection enough for me. And him too, I dare say.

It cost me $130 dollars to kill my dog, to have him interred into ash, to act as God’s proxy. For genuine dog lovers, there is no preparation for such trauma.

It’s hard to love so deeply, to care so much, but even harder to let go. A year after his death, the vestiges of Buddy’s life still surround my own. Many haunt me.

I cleaned out the bed of my truck the other day and found Buddy everywhere.

The black and gray hair.

His old throw-dummies.

A muddy paw print.

A half-empty carton of his favorite liver snacks.

His dog dishes.

The old check cord and stake.

Sometimes a storm grows inside me when I think of Buddy. It’s an emotion without a name. My mind can wonder from our countless good times together and, in a flash, be trumped by the events leading up to his death. It’s difficult to reconcile.

I know now what I wish I had known then: that I should have had him put him to sleep a day earlier, sparing him a night of immeasurable pain and suffering.

My best friend, a very smart girl, has told me on occasion that I have to let go and be thankful for the joyous life we lived together. She is right, of course. But how?

As Buddy lay on that stainless steel table; as we looked into each other’s eyes, his cold nose pressed against my own, I asked my dying Lab for forgiveness.

In that moment, he did for me what he knew I could not do for myself.

Birthday Bluebills for Delta’s Jim Fisher

2011-11-09T05:42:00.000-08:00

An Epic Hunt at Mysterious ‘Lake X’

When Jim Fisher’s alarm went off Sunday morning, he hit the snooze button. Actually, he turned it off completely. It was his 44th birthday, after all, and he figured a little extra sleep would do his body good.

“My intentions were good, but I was too bloody tired to get up and hunt,” said Fisher, Delta’s director of conservation policy. “I spent most of Saturday on year-end yard duty, so I wasn’t moving as fast as normal and figured I’d sleep in a little before I went out. When I woke up, I was chomping at the bit.”

The day was shaping up nicely: a blustery weather system that would eventually bring the year’s first blanket of snow had Fisher with visions of bluebills dancing in his head. By 2:30 p.m., he and Mike Claussen, a friend and Delta member from Winnipeg, headed out for an undisclosed body of water.

“Where did you hunt,” I asked.

“Lake X,” he said.

“Lake X? Where’s Lake X?”

“Lake X is where I hunted.”

Fisher wouldn’t break under my relentless interrogation, but he did finally disclose some vital intelligence. “We had two comments when we got to Lake X: that there were tons of ducks flying over the road and no vehicles there. We had the place to ourselves.”

By tons of ducks, Fisher meant mallards and bluebills, the latter of which he covets more than any other waterfowl species on the planet.

In fact, the bluebill concentrations were so dizzying that Fisher (and I know him well) likely thought he had died and gone straight into a Les Kouba painting. “I’d rather shoot at one bluebill than kill a limit of geese or mallards any day,” he would say a day after the hunt.

Fisher and Claussen hunted about 200 yards from where they parked. They launched a canoe tipped with a two-horse silver-colored motor. All seemed perfect until they hit a rock and broke the motor’s shear pin.

“We really didn’t have the decoys we needed either,” said Fisher. “Some of my friends had the majority of my bluebill decoys, so we set out a hodgepodge of what we had.” 
Translation: a melting pot of canvasbacks, redheads, buffleheads, mallards (yes, mallards) and some anchorless drake bluebills (which he snatched from a long line and clipped to the other decoys) to “brighten the spread.”

“We set two pods with a landing area in the middle,” he said. “The bluebills were flying almost immediately. It was just glorious. Flocks of 30 to 40 birds at a time, and all came past at high speeds and no more than 15 feet off the water out of the north.”

One problem: They weren’t decoying.

A fine birthday present.

As it turned out, Claussen, in true “bumbler fashion,” didn’t “properly” conceal the canoe and motor. “Most guys, you would think, would put the decoy bag over the silver motor,” said Fisher with a laugh. “Any potential positive impact of the decoys was wiped out by boat placement and the lack of concealing the motor.”

Fisher was hoping for a classic decoy hunt, especially on his birthday, but what he got was pass-shooting bliss, what with those bulbous-shaped bluebills (and some ringnecks too) barreling in from seeming all directions.

“Limits were taken in short order,” he said. “We were back at the truck by 4:30, with plenty of daylight left. Honestly, it ranks right up there with some of my best bluebill hunts. It was epic.”

A fine birthday present, indeed.

* Editor’s note: The waterfowl migration is in full swing throughout much of the four flyways. Recent weather patterns (snow, cold and strong winds) in Canada and some northern-latitude states have pushed fresh birds into many areas. Stay tuned.

Hunting Etiquette 101

2011-09-06T13:44:00.000-07:00

There are many joys to waterfowl hunting, not least of which is spending a quiet morning in the duck blind, working the occasional flock of birds into shotgun range as the morning sunrise bleeds across the horizon in multi-chromatic splendor.

What’s not so pleasant is sitting quietly in a duck blind and having steel shot from an unscrupulous group of waterfowlers rain down on you like a hail storm.

Such was the case a few years back while hunting a state wildlife area near Sacramento, California.

My group managed to navigate the early-morning fog deep into this increasingly popular piece of public land, after which we set up decoys and waited for shooting time to commence.

We made our presence acutely known, talking loudly and waving our flashlights in every direction. Soon, another group of hunters, apparently oblivious to our presence (that’s my diplomatic interruption, anyway), set up 50 to 75 yards from us in the same hole.

At shooting time, a flock of widgeon, if memory serves, wheeled in the morning sky right between us, and a rapid volley of shotgun blasts echoed across the marsh. We didn’t fire a shot, but our friends certainly did, sending nontoxic pellets into our blind.

“Incoming,” someone yelled. We all scrambled as the pellets started to land.

The short story: Hunting public land is a self-regulating enterprise, and we regulated the situation. Still, we got lucky; the above mini drama was an accident, perhaps even a serious one, waiting to happen.

Hunter etiquette, especially on crowded public areas, often defines a quality field experience. It takes but one bad apple—in our case, a group of three hunters—to sully an otherwise perfect morning.

To avert such problems, I asked Scott Terning, Delta Waterfowl’s director of recruitment and education, how hunters should comport themselves on public hunting areas. Here are some of his tips and/or thoughts:

# Treat other hunters with respect. If you want to be treated well, treat others in the same fashion. In other words, observe the golden rule. Bad behavior begets bad behavior.

# First come, first served. If another group of hunters gets to “your” spot before you do, find another place to hunt. Don’t encroach on other hunters, period.

# No sky-busting waterfowl. Learn your maximum effective range and respect the birds and other hunters around you. Sky-busting, after all, is a recipe for wounding losses.

# Do not call ducks working another group’s spread. That’s dirty pool.

# Do not block public boat launches by being ill-prepared. Make sure your gear is loaded and your boat is ready to go before you launch it. Time is of the essence. Also, make sure your truck and boat trailer are parked in the appropriate spot—you don’t want your rig in the way.

# Plan ahead and have multiple options for a public hunt. You might find someone who has the same plan as you do.

# If you’re a guest at your friends’ favorite public honey hole, don’t go back there without asking permission first. And never, ever bring someone else there. That’s a no-no.

# Don’t be late. Show up for the hunt at a reasonable time. You don’t want to infringe on the hunt of others by being tardy.

# Pick up all trash and spent shell casing—even if the trash and spent shell casings aren’t yours. Leave your public area in better shape than you found it in.

Tips for Gaining Hunting Access on Private Land

2011-08-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

My dream the other night—a true story, incidentally—is Freudian confirmation that the hunting season is close. Very close.

Standing in the cab of his combine, I was asking a farmer permission to hunt his land.

It was a perfect evening in late October. Minutes before, just outside his long, meandering driveway, I sat in my truck and watched mallards by the dozens pitch into a low spot in his corn field. I couldn’t see the water, but I knew it was partially flooded.

I wanted that spot locked up for the morning, and I was ready, if duty called, to beg and/or grovel to seal the deal. I was salivating.

The good news: I didn’t have to beg. The bad news: I didn’t have to beg. He turned me down coldly and dispassionately before I could open my mouth.

“It’ll never happen again,” he said, referring to a group of hunters who tore up parts of his fields and minimum maintenance roads. “I’m not giving permission to hunt my land anymore.”

Ouch. Getting rebuffed stung, but he had a point: We hunters can be our own worst enemies.

I have but anecdotal evidence to support this thesis, but it seems like getting permission to hunt private land nowadays is much harder than it was even a few short years ago. Sure, more and more land is being leased or is spoken for in one manner or another. But more landowners, it seems to me, aren’t granting permission because they’ve had a few unsavory experiences with a few unscrupulous hunters.

Hunters who hope to develop and maintain a positive relationship with landowners would be well advised to start looking at things from their perspective. Farmers and ranchers covet their land, so it stands to reason they would cast a skeptical eye at anyone who asks for permission to hunt. Gates left open, livestock shot accidentally, fires started unwittingly, fields and roads torn asunder, among other misdeeds—all are legitimate landowner concerns.

Still, many landowners like to show off their spread (and its wildlife) and appreciate the fact that hunters keep wildlife populations in check. Bottom line: Hunters can tip the “go ahead and hunt” balance sheet by building relationships with landowners.

Here are some tips and thoughts to consider:

# Getting permission. I have developed relationships with several landowners over the years, even with some who rebuffed my original overture for permission. For every contact I make in the field, I write down their names, addresses and phone numbers, and keep it on file. It’s paid off for me more times than I can recount, and it likely will for you too.

Throughout the year (and not just during the hunting season), I call landowners to say hello and keep my foot in the door. Most landowners are receptive to the contact and, generally speaking, appreciate the fact you’re willing to go the extra mile. Persistent (though not too persistent) contact often pays off, an approach that can spark some genuine, lasting friendships. It certainly has for me.

Don’t contact a landowner in the wee hours of the morning. Wait for a decent hour before you pull into the driveway and ask for permission. Be ready to tell the landowner how many are in your hunting party and never, ever lie about it. That’s a recipe for getting a free pass off his property, and forever.

On first encounters, I like to meet the landowner, look him in the eye and shake his hand (no wimpy handshakes, either). Once you’ve gotten permission to hunt a time or two, I believe it is fine to ask for permission again over the phone. Be polite and courteous and be prepared to refresh the landowner’s memory about who you are.

# Private land behavior. Hunters must respect the land on which they’re hunting. That means following the rules, and not making them up as you go along. If you ask for permission to hunt ducks, hunt ducks. If you say you won’t drive in his fields, don’t drive in his fields. If the landowner doesn’t want you hunting from his standing corn, don’t hunt from his standing corn. And just because you got permission to hunt once doesn’t mean you have a free pass for the entire season, let alone the following year.

Vehicle traffic is a big, big issue, because if you’re driving across pasture or grassland, especially during a drought, a hot exhaust system can start a fire very quickly (I’ve seen it happen, and it isn’t pretty). Also, landowners are extremely worried about the spread of noxious weeds, which can cost them big bucks to eradicate. Be sure to check your vehicle’s undercarriage (and your trailer, if you’re carrying one) for any weeds. Also, take great pains not to tear up muddy fields and roads. If you’re field-hunting waterfowl and the field in question is muddy, transport your equipment the old-fashioned way: on foot.

Landowners often reward good behavior—and a common, courteous touch. Send a “thank you” note after the hunt, and be sure to ask the landowner if he’d like to share in the spoils of your hunt. For example, a freshly cleaned mallard, tucked neatly into a Ziploc bag, is a nice gesture and promotes good will down the road. A case of beer (or some other gift) isn’t a bad idea, either. A friend of mine sends Christmas cards, a good idea too. In years past, I helped a rancher repair his fence across his entire spread before the hunting season commenced. Not only did he appreciate the help (which I offered), I got to scout too!

Bottom line: Reward landowner generosity by being generous yourself.

In the end, hunters should appreciate the contributions of farmers, ranchers and other landowners. While many provide us a place to hunt, they also provide the necessary habitat we need for wildlife to survive and thrive. After all, roughly 90 percent of all ducks are hatched on private land.

Hunters and farmers can harmoniously coexist if we hunters follow the rules and demonstrate to farmers that we genuinely respect their property and their willingness to let us hunt. We’ll occasionally get rebuffed—even from a tantalizing mallard honey hole, from the cab of a combine—but that’s just part of the deal.

A Lovin’ Spoonful - ‘Hollywood Mallard’ Magazine Cover Causes Stir

2011-07-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

It feels like a popular uprising, spoonie lovers from across the continent coming out of the closet and professing their love for the “Hollywood Mallard.”

In case you’ve yet to see it, we put a northern shoveler, aka spoonbill, on the cover of our summer magazine. The musings on our Facebook page have been uniformly positive, even amorous. In fact, we haven’t had one unfavorable response.

Wrote Mike Wise: “I like seeing the ‘hollywood mallard’ on the cover. Nice change and nice lookin’ bird in my opinion.”

Wrote Cole Wesley: “Got my first one last fall. Nice big drake, one of the better looking birds around.”

Wrote James Upton: “Botox mallard, lov Em.”

Wrote: Jon Steward: “LOVE ‘the always willing to decoy’ Shoveler! They smile all the way to the blind! Contrary to common belief, they are VERY good eating.”

While the masses are heaping lovin’ spoonfuls on the oft-disrespected spoonie, they’re also shredding conventional wisdom that every magazine cover must feature a drake mallard, pintail, canvasback or some other “sexy” bird.

It helps that Fred Greenslade shot the photo, of course. Let’s face it: Fred knows his way around a camera lens. His cover, shot at Delta Marsh in Manitoba, is, as one Facebooker put it, a flawless picture.

What pleases me most is that many are extolling the virtues of spoonies as worthy table fare. I couldn’t agree more, although it should be noted that I’ve received numerous comments over the years to the contrary.

I wrote a newspaper column several years back about orchestrating a blind taste test with some of my hunting buddies. I grilled spoonie breasts for a simple in-the-field duck sandwich I like to make with caramelized onions and horseradish sauce. I told them I was using mallard breasts, and they gobbled the sandwiches down like they had been fasting for a month.

Needless to say they were shocked—and satisfyingly full.

My point: Spoonies are as good in the pan as they are on a magazine cover.

Five Good Reasons to Buy Two Federal Duck Stamps

2011-06-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

What’s the most inexpensive way to improve waterfowl habitat and secure the future of waterfowl hunting?

I’d start by purchasing a Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, commonly called the duck stamp, which all migratory bird hunters are required to purchase. In fact, I’d buy two. Let me explain.

I was rereading some old stories recently, including a piece I wrote on the duck stamp, and how its price—currently $15—hadn’t been increased since 1991, the longest stretch in its history.

Despite overwhelming support from a diverse range of hunting and conservation groups, a federal proposal to raise the price (to roughly $25) has withered on the vine in Washington D.C. since 2008.

The likelihood the U.S. Congress increases the price in the near future is slim and none. But waterfowl hunters don’t need a government edict to make a difference, and that’s why many in recent years have begun to purchase two duck stamps. In fact, Delta Waterfowl President Rob Olson endorsed the idea in 2005.

“If every duck hunter in America purchases two federal duck stamps this fall, it would double the amount of money available to the prairie breeding grounds to protect critical waterfowl habitat,” said Olson, in a press release. “The duck stamp has done more to secure waterfowl habitat than any other waterfowl conservation program on the continent.”

Land values, especially in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), have increased in recent years, in some cases dramatically. That makes securing voluntary perpetual easements (wetland and grassland) more expensive, thus the need for additional stamp revenues. The demand for easements is certainly high, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials; hundreds of willing landowners sit on a waiting list because there’s a lack of funding. Purchasing two duck stamps would help shorten the list and secure vitally important waterfowl habitat.

The 2011-12 federal duck stamp, which pictures a pair of white-fronted geese painted by Minnesota artist and Delta Waterfowl member Jim Hautman, went on sale Friday. If you’re wondering how the federal stamp directly benefits you, check out this state-by-state breakdown.

If you’re still on the fence as to why it’s important to purchase two stamps, here are five good reasons to consider:

1: Since its inception in 1934, the federal duck stamp has generated more than $750 million in sales, securing more than 5.3 million acres of waterfowl habitat, including as much or more than 2.7 million acres in the prairie duck factory.

2: It is one of the most efficient conservation initiatives we have. Ninety-eight cents of every dollar goes directly into the ground as habitat. No other program I’m aware of can boast such efficiency.

3: The federal stamp not only benefits ducks, but myriad other ground-nesting birds (game and nongame) coveted by outdoor lovers.

4: Public access for hunting on National Wildlife Refuges, which are funded in part by federal stamp purchases.

5: Because it’s the right thing to do for the future of our heritage. The idea of purchasing two duck stamps isn’t sexy, but it does have teeth. Even some of my terminally cheap hunting buddies realize an annual investment of $30 is worth it. They want ducks cupped and committed into their decoy spreads come autumn, and an extra $15 is a small price to pay. I couldn’t agree more.

Got Duck Breasts? A Recipe with a Savory, Saucy Kick

2011-04-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Cooking Wild Magazine

My last post about Alice Knows Best and her delicious roasted duck (which I turned into shoe leather, in case you missed it) inspired a healthy response.

In fact, they’re still trickling in.

Several of you sent in terrific, drool-inspiring waterfowl recipes, most of which I’ll profile in this space over the next several months. However, most responses were requests for new, creative ways to prepare duck breasts, a common theme for many waterfowl hunters.

Although I’m a staunch advocate of preparing whole birds (or at least preparing their individual parts: breasts, legs, thighs, not to mention livers and hearts), recipes featuring duck breasts are enormously popular. What waterfowler, after all, doesn’t have the stray vacuum-sealed package of duck breasts in his or her freezer?

As I searched for some new recipes, I happened upon the Web site for Cooking Wild magazine (www.cookingwildmagazine.com), the publisher of which is April Donald of Livermore, California.

I hit the “recipe” tab and found this Deep South-inspired beauty: chicken fried duck breast with Mmm spicy ketchup, courtesy of John Gurnee, a sous chef at Tyler Florence’s Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco.

Founded in January 2010, Cooking Wild magazine is gaining traction with hardcore foodies, especially hunters and anglers who believe eating what they kill isn’t something you merely do, but a calling.

April isn’t a hunter herself, although, she says, she’s been around blood sport her entire life. Her husband hunts, as do other members of her family. Starting a magazine devoted to preparation of wild foods seemed as natural as nature itself.

I prepared the recipe last weekend, with duck breasts supplied by a good friend. I followed its instructions to the letter, with two exceptions: I kicked up the spicy ketchup with some red pepper flakes and turned the duck breasts into duck fingers.

The verdict: drooling-inspiring terrific. Give it a whirl.

Chicken Fried Duck Breasts w/ Mmm Spicy Ketchup

By Chef John Gurnee

Is your freezer loaded with duck breasts? Here’s a quick and tasty recipe for a crispy pile of goodness everyone will enjoy.

Soak the birds overnight in milk to draw out some of the gamey flavor, as well as tenderize the meat (thanks to lactic acid in the milk). Using just enough milk to cover, put the skinless breasts in a plastic container or sealed plastic bag in the fridge overnight.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 cups milk or buttermilk
1 Tablespoons paprika
1 Teaspoon mace
1 Tablespoon black pepper
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Teaspoon allspice
2 cups vegetable oil

1. Remove the duck breasts from the milk and pat dry.
2. Mix together the flour and spices in a shallow dish. Pour the milk or buttermilk into a bowl.
3. Dredge the duck breasts in the flour mixture; dip in milk. Repeat procedure with remaining duck breasts, flour mixture and milk.
4. Dredge the breast in the seasoned flour a final time to ensure a nice coating.
5. Heat oil in a heavy skillet or Fryalator to approximately 350 degrees. Carefully add duck to oil; cook 1½ minutes. Turn duck over; cook 1½ minutes. Remove duck from oil and place on a paper towel to drain. Season with a sprinkle of salt.

Slice the duck breasts or serve them whole with your favorite condiments. I enjoy a souped-up, spicy ketchup.

Mmm spicy ketchup...

1 cup balsamic vinegar, reduced by half
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon your favorite hot sauce

1. Reduce balsamic vinegar in a 2 quart saucepan by half over medium high heat.
2. Reduce heat to low and add the remaining ingredients. Simmer for 2 minutes on low, stirring regularly.
3. Serve Spicy Ketchup alongside warm crispy Chicken Fried Duck Breasts

Roasted Duck: Alice Knows Best

2011-04-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

Start Your Culinary Journey Today

It's all a matter of degree.

I remember learning that lesson the hard way. I was "preparing" my first mallard, a jumbo-sized, grain-fattened drake that I shot from a coffin blind in a South Dakota cornfield.

A good friend and I went on an epic cross-country scouting mission the night before, and needless to say we found a very respectable late-season feed of impervious-to-winter mallards.

About three inches of snow had already blanketed the ground. The temperature had dipped into the teens for about a week. And most water sources, except for the largest of the large, were frozen. Still, with any luck, we figured one good hunt—the year's swan song, we thought—was at hand.

We weren't disappointed (that, incidentally, would come several hours later).

The short story: We each killed four burly greenheads and called it a year. That afternoon I dressed the birds and plucked one specifically for the roasting pan.

I had my grandmother on my mind; Alice (yes, I called my grandmother by her first name!) had perfected roasted duck. The skin was always crispy and the meat was fall-off-the-bone tender and succulent. The mere thought of Alice's oven-roasted duck sent my salivary glands into involuntarily release, like water spilling from a dam.

I was pumped to get in the kitchen and begin my gastronomic journey.

I filled the birds' cavity with quartered apples and onions, massaged the skin with a prepared dry rub, placed the mallard in the roasting pan, and added some braising liquid for good measure.

The oven was already preheated. The temperature: 475 degrees. I followed Alice's directions to the letter. Or so I thought.

One major problem: I over-shot the oven temperature by 200 degrees. Instead of cooking the bird low and slow I roasted it hot and fast. Who knew oven temperature mattered so much?

Instead of fall-off-the-bone tender dark meat, I had jerky bordering on saw dust.

Disaster was at hand. I ordered pizza. It's all a matter of degree, right?

Now several years after the Big Disappoint I still haven't perfected roasted duck. But I've learned a lot about bringing wild protein from the field to the table, and the experience has enriched my life immeasurably as a hunter.

Cooking wild game isn't nuclear physics, but there is a learning curve to breach. Be prepared for disappointment, but don't shy away from it. Just do it. The taste of failure—a mature snow goose as tough as a catcher's mitt—is just part of the adventure.

It's no coincidence that my game preparation started to improve as my respect for waterfowl and waterfowl hunting matured. When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.

I killed plenty of ducks, but I wouldn't always eat them. I'd stow them in the family freezer as, more or less, frozen, winged castaways. Invariably, freezer-burn would mount as a sort of fungus of neglect.

Shameful but true.

When I was in my early 20s I made a pact that I'd never kill anything I didn't eat. And I have been true to my promise ever since. And you know what? I enjoy cooking wild game, especially waterfowl, for my family and friends more than the hunt itself. I consider it a mandatory celebration of our waterfowling heritage.

Hunting has many riches, real and imagined. But nothing about our culture is more satisfying than watching some conscientious objector—that is, a person who heretofore objected to eating wild game under any circumstances—swoon over a dish.

Such interplay between hunters and non-hunters is healthy and needed. I had a conversation recently with a very smart friend who said hunting has no future without "wild food being at the center of what we do as a community of hunters."

He's right.

Bottom line: The non-hunting public will more readily accept hunting if they see us as responsible stewards of the animals we kill. In our increasingly urbanized society in which hunting is often considered an artifact of a bygone era, that's no small point.

I may have turned my first drake mallard into saw dust, but I dusted myself off and got back on the horse. And I'm still enjoying the ride. In fact, it feels like my gastronomical journey is just beginning.

Open up your freezer and start digging around. Find those winged castaways and plan a meal for your family and friends. You won't be sorry you did. Just do it. Today.

* Want to share you favorite waterfowl recipes? Email them to tmccormick@deltawaterfowl.org. I will share them in future posts. For recipes visit Delta Waterfowl's website.

The ‘Strait’ Skinny: Jeff Foiles on the Hot Seat

2011-02-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

Celebrity Waterfowler Facing Serious Charges in U.S., Canada

I remember, and vividly so, the first time I met Jeff Foiles.

It was at Game Fair, the popular late-summer outdoor show near Anoka, Minnesota. A semi-circle had formed around Foiles, who was wearing a lanyard thick with his designer Strait Meat calls and glittery waterfowl bands, the spoils of his many years of gunning. The shoulder-to-shoulder scrum, mostly young duck hunters acting like star-struck groupies, were hanging on his every word, like he had just discovered the cure for cancer.

The adulation of these twenty-something waterfowlers shocked me and clearly tickled Foiles. I had never seen such blind hero worship for anyone, let alone someone who for a living guided hunters, manufactured calls and produced hunting videos.

He's not JC, I remember thinking.

For the first time as a reporter, I watched the celebrity waterfowling culture reveal itself, and Jeff Foiles was its Pied Piper. He held court that day like he had just been given the keys to the kingdom; like he was entitled to something long overdue. The entire mini drama curdled my stomach (it still does), but Foiles was merely basking in his celebrity and leveraging his momentum. His calls were hot. His videos too. And his stature in the waterfowling industry was growing as fast as his ego. With a blend of arrogance and narcissism put at odds only by an occasional nod to modesty, Foiles seemed to be living—and enjoying—the good life.

But now the little empire he built off a public resource may be crumbling, torn asunder by a series of alleged waterfowl and waterfowl-hunting violations in the U.S. and Canada that some in the waterfowl industry say has already made him radioactive. (U.S. Charges | Canadian Charges).

Indeed, sympathy appears to be in short supply. In fact, the S word of the day is schadenfraude: taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. Foiles, it appears, has burned a few bridges in his day.

Foiles faces 12 charges in Canada and 23 in the U.S., all vile and heinous, although some more than others.

According to a story in the Alberta-based Edmonton Journal, the Canadian federal indictment "alleges that on several occasions, during guided hunting tours, Foiles repeatedly violated daily limits in Canada. During an October 2004 guided duck hunt near Camrose, which was filmed for his hunting videos, Foiles allegedly killed at least 24 ducks in one day. The next day the group, led by Foiles, killed about 25 Canada geese. In Alberta, the daily limit for geese is five and for ducks is eight."

According to the indictment, "when the cameraman became upset at the number of geese being killed and shut off the camera, Foiles ordered him to continue filming..."

During the fall of 2005—and this is the charge that, if true, boggles the mind—the indictment says "Foiles travelled to a city park in Loveland, Colo., after learning many Canada geese wearing neck collars and leg tags had been spotted at the park." According to the story, he allegedly used bread to lure the tagged geese to his vehicle, where he shot them with a pellet gun and removed the tags. U.S. officials allege Foiles used the tags he collected from the geese to decorate his duck and goose call lanyard, "which he wore prominently on his commercial hunting videos to advertise his skill and experience as a migratory waterfowl hunter."

Truth is, Jeff Foiles may be innocent of all the charges leveled against him (In the U.S., he has pleaded not guilty) and is obviously entitled to due process under the law. However, if the city park incident is proven true, not to mention the other alleged charges, Foiles will have set the Everest of standards for vile, heinous behavior while impersonating a hunter and should forever be persona non grata in waterfowling circles.

Charges or no charges, Foiles is guilty as sin of debasing our waterfowling culture and making duck and goose hunters everywhere look like knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. His videos are waterfowling pornography that fictionalize our heritage as nothing more than glorified trap shooting, with kill after kill after gratuitous kill (the last time I watched a Foiles video I was sickened by how some of the footage showed the same bird getting shot multiple times, as if dead isn't quite dead enough; pathetic).

Simply put, Foiles has sullied our collective image as duck hunters, especially with the non-hunting public, who outnumber us in by the millions and who, at some point, could decide our fate.

My question is this: Where do we go, and what do we do, to get our reputations back? We start by cleaning up our act and taking responsibility for our actions—all of us. Our culture has ample room for disparate views and customs, but we need to draw a clear, definitive line between videos that stereotype and those that enlighten and educate. Commerce is commerce; we can't stop anyone from making a video. However, we don't have to purchase them, and as consumers that's our trump card.

While I believe these "hunting" videos only appeal to a small demographic (young, male hunters), they do absolutely nothing to enrich or grow our heritage. Most of today's videos are like movie trailers—long on titillation, short on context.

Which brings me to the presentation of the videos themselves. Whatever happened to thoughtful storytelling and putting the kill into context? We need to showcase waterfowl hunting in all its glory—the beginning, the middle and the end.

Instead of a video team collecting an infinite number of "kill" shots (a very time-consuming, expensive and laborious task, by the way), why not frame a kill/harvest sequence around a professionally scripted and shot segment on how to clean and prepare ducks and geese? Why not do it in the field with the setting sun as the scene's endearing backdrop? Why not celebrate the hunt's bounty on camera, with wild protein as the sacrament? Such creativity, ode to nature and fidelity to the long-term future of waterfowling, I believe, will be rewarded in the marketplace. And the storylines are endless.

The Jeff Foiles scandal is an opportunity to regain our moral compass as a waterfowling culture. It will be a damn shame if we let this opportunity go to waste. Let the dialogue begin.

What say you?

USDA Announces New CRP Signup; Will Prairie-nesting Ducks Benefit? Not likely

2011-02-01T08:26:00.000-08:00

Let’s start with the illusion of good news: The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for the second time in as many years, has announced a new general Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) signup for interested landowners.

The USDA would like to enroll 4 million acres into the program, so says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The new acres will be put on the rolls in October.

Now the bad news: Roughly 4.4 million CRP acres are set to expire in 2011, which means a net loss of roughly 400,000 acres. What’s more, over the next few years, a slew of expiring CRP contracts will occur in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), AKA the duck factory of the Dakotas and parts of Montana and Minnesota.

Translation: Prairie-nesting birds (game and nongame) in general and ducks in particular will lose thousands upon thousands of acres of indispensable grassland habitat, the consequences of which will affect hunters, especially duck hunters throughout the U.S., in the years ahead.

The Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers and ranchers to idle environmentally sensitive lands and plant them to grass and other cover types, is the most sweeping beneficial volunteer conservation initiative ever hatched by the federal government. It’s only rival is the Soil Bank program of the 1950s.

The program, now in its 25^th year, is an incubator for prairie ducks and is largely responsible for the U.S. producing more ducks than prairie Canada in the last two years—a seismic shift in the waterfowl world. (see story)

According to research conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CRP has added more than 2 million additional (or incremental) ducks to the fall flight each year since 1992. The program has also created hundreds of thousands of habitat acres for pheasants, quail, prairie chickens, nongame prairie birds and other wildlife and established grass and forested “buffers” that protect streams, rivers and lakes from sediment loads and noxious agriculture runoff.

Not even the ecologically blind could dispute the program’s importance, but its long-term fate rests with Congress and a host of mitigating factors.

One such factor: the massive federal U.S. deficit, expected to mushroom to about $1.5 trillion. The estimated deficit already has policymakers from both major political parties calling for cuts to the next farm bill.

And if history is a guide (and it will be), the cuts will center on conservation, not commodity programs. That means CRP, the most expensive conservation measure of all, will be chum to congressional sharks.

I’m told CRP’s national allotment, which was slashed in the last farm bill from 39 to 32 million acres, could be again and that the USDA is seriously considering CRP land for “biofuels” production.

The latter is an intriguing proposition, but without details, it’s only a meaningless trial balloon. More on that topic in later posts.

In the end, the USDA is doing what it does best: straddling the fence on the future of CRP. In an Associated Press story, Jonathan Coppess, administrator for the Farm Service Agency, trotted out the old, tired “strike a balance” theme between conservation and production as the agency plans for CRP’s future.

“We need to do our best to focus the limited dollars we have to make the best investment,” said Coppess.

Doesn’t exactly warm a duck hunter’s heart, does it?

To read more about the importance of CRP, see my column from the winter 2009 issue of Delta Waterfowl magazine.

My Ongoing Brush with Blindness - An Eye-opening Experience? I’d Say

2010-05-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

My fly-fishing buddy Wade sent me an email several months back. He was wondering why I haven’t made a blog post since September. Yes, September.

“I haven’t seen an update on your blog in quite some time,” he wrote. “You must have had a few things to write about after a fall of chasing ducks around?”

Two weeks ago Wade sent me another email, asking me if I wanted to take a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Ely, Minnesota, where in year’s past we’ve canoed and camped and, most importantly, fly-fished for smallmouth bass, those freshwater street fighters of the piscatorial world.

I’ve been remiss in not returning Wade’s emails, and I’ve been remiss in not responding to some of the many dispatches—emails, letters, phone calls—that I’ve received over the last several months from readers wondering why I fell off the grid.

In the last eight months, I’ve had four surgeries to repair a detached retina in my left eye. Forgive me for playing the sympathy card, but this entire ordeal has been as pleasant as gargling a cocktail of battery acid and antifreeze.

It started innocently enough: I was hunting doves with Buddy the Black Lab (see last post) when I started to see black dots, commonly called floaters in the eye-repair business, in my left eye. I didn’t think much of it, but common sense told me to get it checked out, which I did. An optometrist told me that floaters are common and would probably move in and out of my vision for the rest of my life. Not to worry, though, he said. You should be fine. A week later I woke up and could barely see out of my left eye. Either a mighty glacier-sized floater was blocking my vision or something else had gone terribly wrong.

The upshot: My retina had a severe tear that required surgery, and immediately. I remember glibly telling my retina specialist/surgeon, whom I had just met, that I had to be “fixed” before my duck-hunting trip to South Dakota.

He looked at me like I needed psychiatric care, too. “You don’t understand,” he said. “This is very, very serious. You won’t be making the trip.” That’s when I got scared. That’s I felt true panic for the first time in many, many years.

It’s odd how efficiently certain traumatic events cut through the BS and remake your priorities. I love duck hunting; I love it as much as anyone. But in that moment, hearing my doctor’s words, I, mentally, put duck hunting into a little box and shut the lid, and I haven’t opened it since.

I wish I could say my eight-month-and-counting ordeal was in nearing its end game. But it isn’t. I’ve had three more surgeries (long story, to be sure) and I’m still not sure what the future holds, and perhaps that’s the scariest thing of all.

Sight? I hope I can recapture some of it in my eye left. I pray for it. And I know others are too. Like my good buddy Wade, with whom I hope to fly-fish once again real soon.

Hunting Doves with King Lear

2009-09-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

I snuck out at sunup the other morning to hunt doves for an hour. My ageless wonder, Buddy the Black Lab, made the trip too.

Actually Buddy the Black Lab isn’t really black anymore—far from it. Entering the backstretch of his 11th year, Buddy has aged into the canine version of King Lear. So says a friend who has a particular high Shakespearian IQ. “He (Buddy) looks like King Lear,” she said in an email not long ago. “Unbelievable. I can’t believe how he’s changed. He’s an old man.”

I look at Buddy’s photos from years past and I don’t even recognize His Majesty. He went from charcoal black to geriatric white in seemingly record time. The good news: Buddy, despite his age, is the happiest dog you’ll ever meet; always has been, likely always will be. Instead of growing more jaded and curmudgeonly over time like I have, Buddy has mellowed and gotten only happier. Dogs, especially labs, are remarkable that way.

What’s more, Buddy’s desire to hunt is still insatiable. Unlike King Lear (so the play goes), Buddy has no designs on retiring and ceding his power; he’d rather hunt until his last breath (or until his arthritis cripples him permanently, whichever comes first).

But not even the best of modern-day pharmacology—and I’ve tried everything—can tame the persistent, nagging pain in his right leg or fix his omnipresent limp. One early-season duck hunt and I’m retiring Buddy for good. His old bones just don’t have the juice to bounce back anymore.

Still, there are moments, like the other day hunting doves, in which adrenaline and desire combine to mask age and ailment; when Buddy runs with the joy and exuberance of a puppy. If you’ve ever owned a dog, especially a hunting dog in its sunset years, you understand the beauty in this, and how you allow yourself, just for second, to believe the illusion is real. But, unfortunately, it’s not. In the canine world, there’s no cure for either age or arthritis; there’s no fountain of youth for King Lear to become Buddy the Black Lab again.

I’m slowly coming to grips with this melancholy fact. I’m learning to appreciate the small victories, our priceless moments together; those snapshots that eventually become memories heaped upon other memories.

Like his last dove retrieve near sunup the other morning. Not even Shakespeare himself could find tragedy in that.

Blogging for Delta? Fred made me do it

2009-08-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

I blame Fred Greenslade.

I blame Fred Greenslade for all the time I don’t have to fly-fish and hunt; for all the time I don’t have to read my growing stack of books, and for the all the time I don’t have to pursue an adequate social life.

Fred is Delta Waterfowl’s award-winning photographer, genius webmaster and my good, good buddy.

He works long, long hours for Delta, doing many, many things, including bugging the *&#$ out of me on occasion.

“You should start a blog,” he emailed several months back, his first salvo in a carpet-bombing campaign to steal away what remains of my already-limited free time. “You’d like it. God knows you have a lot to say. Besides, it would be fun. You need to do this.”

I didn’t respond. I thought he was nuts, insane, mad. Another crazy Canadian, I mused. Way too much on my plate already. Too many “opportunities.” Start writing a blog? Fo’get about it.

A few days later another email popped happily into my inbox, the subject line of which read: Blog. I spiked it. Then the voicemails started: “Hey man, about that blog…”

But I was getting weak, and I think Fred sensed I was starting to buckle. Like coerced interrogation, Fred was, slowly but surely, wearing me down. Indeed, his relentless rhetoric started to wither my resolve like a raisin in the sun. The upshot: I finally succumbed.

Truth is, I liked the idea of writing a blog, and Fred’s persuasion-as torture finally pushed me over the edge.

Thanks buddy!

I don’t know much about blogging, but I'm about to find out. Writing is writing, I figure: You start with a blank page, come up with an idea or two, whack the keys around a little bit, and hope you come up with something somebody likes.

Or hates.

Either way, I hope my blog provokes some sort of emotional response from time to time. More importantly, I hope to start a discussion about the important and increasingly complex issues affecting our North American waterfowling culture. Along the way, I’ll do my level best to inform, educate and even entertain.

If I don’t, well, you have my permission to blame Fred Greenslade, my good buddy. I know I will.