Thank you for your offer. I would love to make that happen and maybe get some of those delicious looking clams too!
This is my 38th year of waterfowling. I've never missed an opener. Yep, I'm staring down the barrel at fiddy. I am the oldest of three brothers and we all hunted. Dad was a willing, if reluctant participant. Because there was an age gap between myself and my two younger bros, it was up to me to help mentor them in the woods or marsh. Dad continued to deer hunt but bowed out of duck hunting pretty quick because it was too much for his knees and back so it was up to me. The three of us became pretty close if only for those few months every year-sort of an unsaid thing; we knew we were going to be together.
When we lost my youngest brother, a really cool thing happened. Our duck hunting friends rallied for us. They knew they could never fill his shoes yet they never wanted us to be without someone to hunt with. These guys were his pallbearers who showed up wearing Columbia Quads in old school camo. Yep, I think it's some kind of sickness.
So in less than a month my brother and I plus a couple of friends are going to North Dakota to hunt the prarie pothole region and share some laughs.
