"The Best Duck Hunt a Brother Could Ever Have"

It was 1:30 am we pulled away from his home on our way to Magee Marsh, Port Clinton, OH.  Herk was selected for a blind and he could take one guest.  That guest was me his younger brother of 5 years.  We arrived at the marsh by 4:00 am (one hour early) before the blind selection process had begun.  We checked and double checked our equipment, which consisted of guns, ammo, camo, gloves, waders and duck calls. We practiced calling almost the whole drive out and I still had the sounds echoning in my head while we waited with great excitement for the hunt to begin.  5:00 came quickly and they (Division of Wildlife Officers) began pulling the balls out of the squirell cage.  They called Tom Daly, Blind #7.  "Lets get our gear brother and load it in the flat bottom boat" he said.  We were the first boat in a seven boat caravan being hauled by the DOW Officer but the last to be dropped off at our designated blind.  It was still an hour before shooting time, we dropped off our gear and began the task of setting out our (his) decoys.  He was a fanatic about the placement of the decoys as they had to be facing correctly and spread apart just so.  Just as daylight came over the marsh, he made a few very soft contented feeding calls with his duck call just to let the ducks know where the food was.  We started seeing ducks right away and when he called they swing over, see the decoys, set their wings and and drop in to join the others.  Flock after flock all morning long.   He did all of the calling as I was too excited and could only blurt out a few high pitched squeals which was scaring them away.  We hunted till noon, as allowed and had bagged seven ducks, (3) pintails, (2) green headed mallards, (1) black duck and (1) shoveler.  When we got back to the check in station, the officer noted our 7 ducks and said you guys did something right and the best in the marsh today.  "All the others had only bagged 1 or 2 ducks" he said.  As we drove home we reminisced about the sucess of our hunt and the beautiful Magee Marsh. That was over 40 years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday.  I can recall almost all of the hunts we shared together as he made them all that special.

I am surely going to miss him and no hunt will ever be the same.

Ted A. Daly, Brother