by Brad Fitzpatrick
From the hot, dusty confines of a coffin blind I scanned the sky for any sign of birds. Our hunting party was positioned at the eastern edge of a freshly-harvested wheat field in southern Idaho, and the stubble rows were lined with more than three-dozen full-body pigeon decoys that reflected the white light of morning. It was August, and by 9:00 a.m., temperatures were rising quickly, turning the interior of the blind into a makeshift convection oven that robbed all moisture from the air. That didn’t matter to me, though, because as the temperature was heating up, so was the wingshooting.
Across the valley there were a series of high cliffs, and I could see pigeons gathering in the air above the rocks. The flock was leaving the roost in search of food, and after circling the sheer cliffs, the birds lined out over the wheat field and headed our way.
“Get ready,” said Neal Hunt of Soar No More Decoys. “Here they come.”
Dozens of birds headed in our direction. As they grew closer, I adjusted my shotgun and waited for the pigeons to commit and drop into the decoys, tucking their wings and gliding down from the sky like so many mallards into timber. I lost them in the sunlight and sat motionless waiting for Neal’s call to shoot.
“Take ‘em!”
At once we burst through the blind doors and chose our targets. I shot at a bird, lost it in the sun, and switched to another. All down the line hunters fired, and when the wheat field grew quiet once more we had several birds down. There was no time to gather the pigeons, though, since more birds were already visible on the far horizon and were coming our way.
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