My Citori shotgun lay beside me, sort of half resting against my leg while I lay out in the middle of an enormous frozen pond. The sky was the most beautiful shade of pale blue, and the sun's reflection on the frozen pond hurt my vision. I was in stocking-foot waders, but My boots were missing. "Where the heck are my boots?" I said out loud as I tried to sit up.
Bo was now standing over a dead Canada goose that I had apparently shot, and he had retrieved. My gun had two empty shells in the chambers, and my thoughts were tangled and twisting nonsensically. I sat for the longest time trying to organize thoughts in my concussed brain. I hurt, I was lost, and why in the world would I have come out here with no boots.
It took a long time for me to put together the happenings that led to that moment on the ice. Though it was all really confusing at the time, things have since cleared up considerably, and I remember mostly what happened. Like any hunting day, Bo and I rose early, and with my best pal on the passenger seat, I pointed the truck toward the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge just west of Brigham City, Utah, hoping to have the marsh all to myself. It was Christmas day, and I knew I shouldn't be hunting. If my mother had known, she would have thrown a fit. I was in my misguided and misspent early 20s and didn't care what she or anyone else thought or said. In fact, I suppose a part of me kind of enjoyed the fact that it would make someone angry.
We arrived an hour before daybreak and walked off into an area of the marsh that I knew very well. Looking back, it is incredible that I never even took a flashlight with me, but I never once lost my way without one. My good side had me thinking of returning home early to celebrate Christmas with family, so I took only a few decoys. December in Utah is always cold, and most years, the flat, calm waters will be locked up with ice. We walked across the frozen marsh to a place where the current always kept a little water open. I set up and settled in to wait in that comfortable misery I so enjoy.
The magic of the morning marsh always leaves me breathless. It started with the deafening songs of thousands of ducks, geese, and swans in the distance tingling my ears. Soon, the silhouettes of ducks could be seen rocketing into and then out of sight. Finally, the sun peaked over the hill and shot sparkles off the ice crystals on the bulrush, the mostly frozen pond, and other vegetation. Yes, it was truly magnificent, and I was at home.
I remember feeling sorry for those in bed or opening presents. They did not see and hear the magic of this Christmas morning the way I did. As the sun rose a little higher, it became obvious I was nowhere near the X the ducks wanted to be on. I picked up my decoys, left them in the cattails to be picked up on the way out, and wandered off in search of a better place to hunt the next day.
I crossed several canals of open moving water in the direction of the birds I had been listening to all morning until I was in sight of them. A bunch of birds sat on a patch of open water in the middle of a huge frozen pond. They were in a situation that I was not equipped to hunt. Disappointed, I sat and watched them hopelessly for several minutes when I noticed a few waves of geese getting up to the north and flying low to the east. The flocks would take flight a few minutes apart, and each wave would follow the same path. If I could put myself under that flight path, I might get a shot at a Christmas goose. There were so many birds in the big flock on the water I just hoped they would continue the same behavior. As I got closer, the difficulty of getting to that flight path without disturbing every bird on the pond became obvious. The ice had a crunchy layer on top that cracked and echoed off the frozen pond with every step like it was electronically amplified. There were some small islands of cattails that I could use for cover, but it would be tricky. Wondering if I would regret the move, I removed my boots, leaving them on the ice, and tried as hard as I could to walk silently on the crunchy ice in my stocking foot waders. With my careful footsteps now muffled and belly crawling in the exposed places, I was able to get very close to that flight path. I had just one more big patch of exposed ice to sneak across, and I would be in a great patch of bulrush to ambush those geese when they flew over.
I had done well until now, but concealing my movements in this final stretch would be a problem. There was only one patch of cover that I could put between the birds on the water and me. The real trick would be to avoid getting busted by a flock in the air already. I sat and waited for a group to get up and fly off. After they passed, I hustled, trying to make that cover quickly while still being as quiet as possible. I was right in the middle of the most exposed area when a group of birds honked and flushed. They flew straight at me, so I dropped down flat on my stomach and pulled Bo in close beside me with one arm. With my face down against the ice and my hood over my head, I could not see the birds, but I could hear them. And I could see Bo's eyes getting more intense and focused as they approached. When Bo was looking out of the very top of his eyes, I blindly stood up and picked out a bird. They flared, the first barrel connected, and a goose fell from the flock. I picked another bird just as they were getting over the top and out of my range of motion. Off balance, I pulled the trigger. A layer of ice had formed on the neoprene bottom of my stocking feet, and as I fired and the gun recoiled, my feet slipped out from under me. My head slammed into the ice, and that is where I blacked out.
So there I was, confused, shoeless, alone except for my faithful dog, and lost. It took several hours for me to figure out where I was and the direction in which my truck was parked. I did find my way back on my own, and ol' Bo found my boots.
Later that night, my head was still throbbing, and I was nauseous as I tried eating Christmas dinner with my family. I haven't hunted on Christmas since.
God bless and Merry Christmas.
