The morning goose hunt had been a fine one. Sailing in confidently under the lid of a classically low-hanging scud, a nice mixture of snows and cacklers had found our rig, which we'd set in the wheat stubble exactly where they had fed until dark the evening before. But the ducks we expected to join them never came to play. So when a couple of our gang offered to handle the scouting for the following morning, my son Bill, hunting partner Mike Brookins and I opted to try for an afternoon duck shoot in a Manitoba pea field we knew was feeding some mallards.

My stars aligned. Tucked into the downwind edge of our spread of full-body honkers and field mallards, I quickly shot out on greencaps. I closed the lid on my blind and beat feet out of the field with my old Lab, Tanner, on my heels. Brookins, who'd been equally fortunate, soon followed. We left the uncluttered rig to Bill and his yellow sidekick, Maggie.

We watched the show through the windshield of my pickup as the pair deliberately went to work on a limit. While they did, the recollection of several special, but equally impromptu afternoon hunts enjoyed over my nearly 40 years of prairie wildfowling came flooding fondly back.

Now, prairie-borne waterfowling is for the most part about the morning hunt and everything involved in it. Scouting for the fields feeding huntable numbers of mallards and geese, securing landowner permission to hunt them, putting together the plan, and then executing it, requires nothing short of a ton of work and military maneuver-like precision. A good morning shoot is always satisfying, and a boatload of fun. Although the effort put into each one is similar, no two morning hunts are more alike than any two sunrises. All are equally special.

Still, those unplanned, opportunistic afternoon hunt -- bonuses really -- seem to steal the show.

Here are just a few that stand out in my mind.

Last Half-Hour Teal
Hunting partner Dave Kovacic, and my wife-to-be, Mary, had gone freelancing the Minnedosa pothole country early one October back in the 1970s. Our inept attempt to field hunt mallards that morning had been a bust, so in late afternoon, we cruised the countryside looking for a water hunt, the type we were far more familiar with. When we rolled past a three- or four-acre cattail-rimmed slough that had to be staging every blue-winged teal in Manitoba, we knew we had found that day's honeyhole.

At a farmstead a half-mile down the dusty road, it was our good fortune to find the landowner working in the yard. A bit perplexed by our request, he asked, "Why did you come so far just to shoot ducks?" followed by "Why did you bother to ask?"

With a curious smile, he quickly granted permission to hunt, but not before his white-aproned wife burst through the farmhouse door with a plateful of still-warm oatmeal cookies.

Although we were anxious to get on with the hunt, we couldn't refuse the obviously conversation-starved lady's offer. While the milk-and-cookie buffet admittedly hit the spot, we weren't able to excuse ourselves until less than an hour of shooting time remained.

It was a pleasantly warm, windy and sunny Indian summer afternoon as we finally waded into the edge of the wetland, only to be swallowed up in a world of whirling teal. It was a short and sweet pass shoot.

Sitting on the tailgate as darkness settled in and the pollution-free sky filled with stars so close we could reach out and touch them, we toasted our good fortune, as any hunter visiting the Canadian prairie might -- with an icy cold Blue.