2010 Duck Hunt 1: Over before it started.

I noticed the car horn as I was tossing the decoy bag in the back of the truck. Three honks, a pause, three honks, a pause, three honks, a pause, from somewhere toward the road. Damned car alarms.

It was still honking as Tess and I pulled out of the driveway, and when I got down to the intersection I saw why. There was a truck with a very crumpled front end sitting in the middle of the road, hazard lights flashing, horn wailing. Inside the truck was a very upset lady who had swerved to avoid a deer (always a bad idea) and then smacked into one of the large native stone escarpements that adorn the entrance to the state park.

She was a bit shaken up, but unhurt. Her truck, however, was not. I managed to pop the hood and disconnect the lead to the horn, then called the sheriff's office. I had been on a pretty tight schedule to begin with, and now as the eastern sky started glowing a faint pink, I (reluctantly, but only on the inside) told her I'd stay with her until the state trooper got there. Who said chivalry (even reluctant, damn-there-goes-my-hunt chivalry) is dead?

So when the trooper got there twenty five minutes later, I said my goodbyes, waited until the trooper's car was out of sight, and then hit the gas. The primary destination was out. The back-up destination was closer, but with Oklahoma's Zone 2 opener still a week away, chances are the local lake would be covered up with metro area hunters.

Yep, it was. So this is how we spent our first duck hunt of the 2010 season...

Pure, unadulterated canine depression...