(Goose) down goes yet another hunter

IN THE LAST TWO days, I have received multiple emails from well-meaning family and friends with links to a story that tells of a hunter who was knocked out cold by a falling Canada goose. The dead goose, shot by another hunter, plummeted into the blind and cold-cocked the man who was later taken to hospital and tested for mental damage – which is difficult, if not impossible to ascertain when dealing with a guy who looks forward to being in the cold marsh, an hour before sunrise.

The good news is this hunter will very likely make a full recovery, though I imagine, from here on in, he will probably hit the dirt every time he hears a goose call.

I’m more surprised that this made the news cycle at all.

I don’t know too many hunters who have not been hit or had close calls with charging waterfowl. My cousin Louis, for instance, quit duck hunting not long after a green wing teal doing 40 miles per hour hit him squarely in the chest. (To this day we tell him he almost quacked a rib.) This hap-

pened immediately after he decided to stand on the bench seat of a blind to see if any ducks were moving. They were.

I have also been in duck blinds on several occasions where we had to scramble to avoid incoming birds and once my cousin Dan had to defend himself with a quick left hook to deter a rapidly de- scending wood duck that I had shot.

None of this would come as a surprise to any experienced waterfowler.

In fact, this is actually an occupational hazard for the waterfowler and is the main reason I prefer hunting half-pound greenwinged teal over 12-pound geese.

For an experienced waterfowler, the real sport of a duck or goose hunt is to drop a bird in the blind, hopefully so that it hits the hunter beside you. To be clear, we’re not hoping for a solid knockout – that would cut into your hunting time. We actually prefer a technical knockout, whereby the hit hunter goes down for the ten-count and comes up after a liberal dose of smelling salts. Then when he gets up, you can tell him about the great shot you made.

As you might imagine, this is not easy.

The problem is when most of us see a situation like this unfolding, we instinctively yell “duck!” which is actually not a lot of help. If anything, this makes the hunter extend his neck and tilt his head up for a look – and next thing you know he has to explain to his dentist why he has down in his teeth.

We also have difficulty alerting the other guy because we are focused on the bird we hit and yelling, “Did you see that shot?” And this is especially problematic if “that shot” is getting closer to him by the millisecond.

I know it seems like I’m making sport of this, but I’m not. It’s a worrisome trend. Heck, if this continues, hunting regulations might be amended to make helmets mandatory. This is why we no longer ride bicycles.

The only practical thing a hunter can do to avoid this sorry situation is jump out of the blind every time a shot is fired. But we’re not going to do that.

Getting back to the news aspect of this, I’m very surprised the story got out at all. There are very few hunters who’ll talk about getting goosed.