A buck and two does fled the field for the tree line as soon as the truck tires hit gravel. One doe peered over its shoulder just before breaking into heavy cover.
A few days earlier, the deer's escape might have caused some consternation. But gun season had passed, and the second split of Canada goose season had opened.
Deer slugs had been replaced by steel shot, the choke tube changed to improved cylinder, and deer calls had been replaced by a pair of goose calls, both of which were meant to be worked with a combination of magic and mystery.
An old friend had invited me to share a pit blind last week, but then had been called away on business at the last minute. The invitation still stood, he said, if I were willing to go it alone.
The silhouettes and a few shells already were stacked behind the pit, he said, and geese had been moving regularly along the river and in the pond and cut cornfield.
Enjoy, he said.
No problem. At least not until the four dozen decoys had to be taken into the darkness and staked in some semblance of family order around the blind -- heads into or slightly slanted across the wind, a couple of sentinels for every six or eight feeders and resters, and all grouped so that a pocket or landing zone would bring the real thing toward ground within shooting range.
In the last of the darkness, the spread seemed well placed, one pocket about 20 yards out in front of the blind, the other about 30 yards behind it, each set so that the birds could come in upwind and under the gun.
The flags were set in the corner of the blind, the shotgun loaded and set in the rack, and as the light came up, the geese could be heard stirring on the river 150 yards northwest, ready to fly.
It was that curious time one encounters in all things that are new -- first bike ride, first car, first child -- the anticipatory period when the prospect of things to come is almost better than the event itself.
But with the light, the wind changed and 48 or so decoys now were situated with their behinds unyieldingly into the wind and contrary to any semblance of natural order.
While I was out of the blind to turn the silhouettes and shells, the first flight of geese lifted from the river, flew low over the far end of the field and were quickly gone from sight.
No problem. There still were hundreds if not a thousand birds yet to lift off the river and head across the field to water or feed -- and among them certainly there was one that would fill the daily limit.
A pair of geese rose above the tree line, and turned in flight to listen to the bleat from the pit -- tooooooooo-it. . . . tooooooooo-it. . . . tooooooo-it.
Interested, they came closer and began a slow circle 60 yards or so from the blind, heads cocked and listening to the cluck -- tut-tut-tut-tut-tut -- until the cluck became a series of inadvertent squeals and they flared away.
No problem. The anticipatory period simply had become uncontrollable jitters as I tried to work the call, slide back the roof of the pit, reach for the gun and set for a shot. No problem at all, really.
But as the day warmed, the wind shifted again. The decoys were corrected, the flags were worked on distant birds and the calls worked on birds near and far. As the day brightened through mid-morning, the mood grew darker. Not one bird among thousands had come within range of a reasonable shot.
Days like these, I thought while clearing and stacking the decoys, can make one appreciate the skills of a good guide -- not because you were smart enough to hire one, but because you weren't.