Two weeks is not enough time to become a crack wingshot. A more reasonable and reachable goal for waterfowlers ahead of the Oct. 28 openings of duck and goose seasons is to prepare a realistic spread that draws birds so close anybody could hit them. At the end of last year's long season, decoy maintenance was not high on most hunters' priority lists. Tangled lines and missing weights and all, the oversized sacks of plastic ducks and geese landed where they were tossed in the garage, there to collect dust all summer and fall. The special early teal season is hardly a motivation, particularly for hard-core goose hunters.
Teal hunters can get by with whatever is handy, which only promotes further procrastination.
And so the remainder of the decoys, sometimes more than 100 ducks and several times as many fake geese, sit at idle, becoming no less a dirty, snarled mess than when they were stuffed so hastily into their sacks one wet, cold, nasty January morning earlier this year. To ignore them now, while patching and painting and sorting and such can be performed in broad daylight and without the pressure of shooting time, is to willingly forfeit two or three easy chances per hunt. If you want to enjoy a fine meal, in other words, set a proper table. Begin your waterfowl season preparation by hauling out everything you've got and inventorying the entire lot of it. Cover the garage floor or backyard with it, if you must, but don't count on memory.