f any of the columns I write throughout the year, I always feel like this is the time of the season when you could read something and say to yourself, “Hey, Larsen may not be such a dimbulb after all. I think I’ll try that next time I’m out hunting.” Thus, I’ll devote this column to all of us leaving our duck calls in our pockets.

Let me back up. I’m told that only about eight percent of golfers ever reach a single-digit handicap. This means that very few players get good enough to go around a golf course with a real opportunity to demonstrate a mastery of the game, and shoot a score near par, or shoot a score in the 70s on any given day. The rest of us – or rather the majority of us – are littering the woods with small surlyn-covered spheres or standing ankle deep in sand traps, swinging and uttering oaths that would make merchant marines blush. But, golf, like duck calling, can be a lot of fun. However, duck calling, like golf, takes practice.

The silver lining of my advancing age is that I am now able to look at things in rather lengthy hindsight, and I can tell you that over the past 25 or 30 years, hunting for ducks has changed dramatically. Ducks today don’t act like ducks did years ago. Conditions have changed, pressure has changed, the way ducks move down the flyways has changed. While those of us fortunate enough to travel north to Canada on occasion still have the opportunity to see ducks act as foolish as barnyard chickens from time to time, even those moments are becoming increasingly rare.

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