Welcome to the Brotherhood

By Ryan Cook
12 January 2010

As usual, I was glued to the Outdoor Channel late the other night watching "The Bone Collector" and Michael Waddell said something during one of his commercials that really made me start thinking about a hunt I had shared with my brother and nephew earlier that evening.

It had been extremely cold over the past few weeks and with the duck season winding down, we had really been putting in the hours on the rivers and creeks. The hunting had been really good and my nephew Matt had been calling me non-stop wanting to go with us. As cold as it was, we were reluctant to let him go out with us being that he is only 7 years old. Matt went out a couple of times last year during the early season but had never been out on the river in such extreme conditions, but he kept asking so my brother and I decided to bundle him up and bring him with us.

The action that evening was slow to start, birds did not move very well early in the hunt but I had scouted this spot the day before and I knew that there were going to be some Mallards come in later on in the evening. As my brother and I sat in the blind talking about various things I noticed that Matt hadn't said a word for a long while. As I looked down at him, I almost laughed, his eyes scanned the sky back and forth, as focused as any lab I had ever hunted with. He wasn't going to miss one thing. I had been caught up talking with Jeff and hadn't noticed the group of birds over the tree line. Like he had done it a thousand times, Matt looked at us and said, "Birds." The group of 4 birds swung wide over the river and at about 150 yards, locked their wings and started to drop down. I could tell by their height that they were going to circle again and leaned over to Matt and said, "U got em' bud?" Matt looked back at me and said, "Uncle Ryan, you have to keep your head down!" When he said that to me I knew we had another one, hooked for life! The birds circled again dropped into the decoys, my brother raised up and immediately dropped the lead drake and I followed with a drake as they gained altitude. Matt made short work of the retrieves and was all smiles as he got back to the blind.

That evening at home watching TV, I thought about Matt and his hunt with us. It was great to spend some time with him and watch how excited he was to retrieve those ducks. I am sure Matt will remember his first river hunt with his dad and me for a long time, just like I remember mine. The moments we have with kids or first time hunters are pretty special. They don't happen very often but when they do, make sure you take time and enjoy it. It's great for me to see new guys get hooked on our sport and even better to see young kids get excited about hunting. I guess it really is like Michael Waddell said in his commercial, "Welcome to the Brotherhood!"