On the Cooking of Wild Ducks
And just here I want to suggest something which ought to greatly curtail the distribution of wild ducks among our friends. In households where no idea prevails of the difference between properly cooking a wild duck and one brought up in a barnyard, a complimentary gift of wild fowl is certainly of questionable advisability; for if these are cooked after the fashion prescribed for the domestic duck they will be so thoroughly discredited in the eating that the recipient of the gift will come near suspecting a practical joke, and the donor will be nearly guilty of waste.
In Virginia they have a very good law prohibiting duck shooting on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and of course on Sundays. These are called rest days. We arrived at the very comfortable club-house of the Back Bay Club, in Princess Anne County, about noon one Saturday, with weather very fair and quiet—too much so for good ducking. From the time of our arrival until very early Monday morning, besides eating and sleeping, we had nothing to do but to “get ready.” It must not be supposed that those words only mean the settlement in our quarters and the preparation of guns, ammunition and other outfit. Many other things are necessary by way of stimulating interest and filling the minds of waiting gunners with lively anticipation and hope. Thus during the preparatory hours left to us our eyes were strained hundreds of times from every favorable point of observation in search of flying ducks; hundreds of times the question as to the most desirable shooting points was discussed, and thousands of times the wish was expressed that Monday, instead of being a “blue bird day,” would present us with a good, stiff breeze from the right direction. The field of prediction was open to all of us, and none avoided it. A telling hit was made by the most self-satisfied weather-prophet of the party, who foretold an east wind at sundown, which promptly made its appearance on schedule time.
When we were roused out of bed at 4.30 o’clock that Monday morning we found our east wind still with us in pretty good volume, and although we all knew it was not in the most favorable quarter, and that the weather was too warm for the best shooting, it was with high hopes that we got into our boats and started in midnight darkness for our blinds. Whatever anticipation of good shooting I had indulged met with a severe reverse when I learned that my shooting companion and I were expected to kill ducks with our decoys placed to the windward of us. I warmly protested against this, declaring that I had never done such a thing in my life, and in the strongest language I objected to the arrangement; but all to no purpose.
As I expected, the ducks that were inclined to fly within our range, coming up the wind behind us, saw our blinds and us before they saw the decoys, and when we tried to turn and get a shot, a sudden flare or tower put them out of reach. As for fair decoying, they had no notion of such a thing. We killed a few ducks through much tribulation; but the irritation of knowing that many good opportunities had been lost by our improper location more than overbalanced all the satisfaction of our slight success. That my theory on the subject of windward decoys is correct was proved when on Thursday, with a west wind and decoys to the leeward, we killed at the same place more than twice as many ducks as we killed the first day. This was not because more came to us, but because they came in proper fashion.