February/March 2010

Waterfowling North America
The Extreme Crowd
by Doug Larsen

came home quite late one day this past duck season, and after some scolding from the wife, I broke down and admitted to her that I had fallen in with a bad crowd. She didn’t believe me. “You are almost fifty years old; I can hardly believe that any motorcycle gang would have you. Besides, you don’t have a motorcycle,” she said.

I explained that it was worse than that. I had fallen in with a group of diving duck hunters.

Now I have always believed that in terms of fanaticism, there are three or four levels of the outdoor crazies. First there are the fishermen, who obviously fish, and lie about the fish they catch or don’t catch and skip church to go fishing. Then there are the fly-fishermen. They are worse. They’ll do all of the above, plus  dip into the college money to buy the latest graphite rod and a reel to hang off of it that is the technological equivalent of the atomic clock. Then there’s the fly-tying, and the never-ending search for feathers from a bustard or hair from a polar bear’s chinny chin chin.

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