Trempealeau - Hunkered down in my jon-boat duck blind, tucked into some tall stalks of wild rice in a Mississippi River backwater, I was sitting on a bucket, clutching my 12-gauge and scanning the sky for ducks.
"There's four, coming right at us," my cousin and long-time duck-hunting buddy, Bill O'Sullivan, whispered from the other end of the boat.
I looked up and over just in time to catch a glimpse of a fast-moving flock of ducks heading our way. When the birds soared overhead, I shouldered my gun, picked one out and shot.
At the sound of the gun, one of the ducks folded and dropped into the channel.
That was the moment that Cody, my three-year-old golden retriever, had been waiting for. He'd been spending a long watchful time seated at the transom of the boat, staring out through the camouflage, his nostrils flaring to take in the smells of the marsh, and his muscles trembling with anticipation.
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