Why duck hunting?
In my weekly quest to get out of my comfort zone, I am taking on new challenges to broaden my scope of the world. This week I went duck hunting with my Epic Day partner, Travis. Getting out to do stuff like this is exactly why we began Epic Day in the first place. It’s a great excuse to learn how to do fun stuff, plus when we have a website we get free and discounted trips! Friday was just Trav and me on the Intracoastal Waterway.
As part of Epic Day, Travis put together a “101 Course” for our website on duck hunting. Since the season started a few weeks back, he’s gone a handful of times, but this was the first time he’d taken a true beginner like me. He has the fever, he’s addicted. And I can see why, it’s a fun time and it’s very calming to be out there in nature… plus you get to shoot guns, so that’s always awesome. I had read a lot about it and I’ve shot lots of guns, but never dressed up in camo with the intent of bringing home some food.
Intricacies
I showed up to Travis’ parents house at 4:00 PM to help get the ganoe (yes, that’s a G, it’s more than a canoe) filled and ready to go. Travis had done most everything already so we put on some camouflage, packed the ganoe with some palm frawns, loaded up the shotguns and our hunting licenses and shipped out.
Trav had already scouted a great spot for us. How did 2 amateurs know it was a great spot? Someone had already set up a pretty permanent duck blind in the place we came to. A duck blind is necessary because ducks and waterfowl have great eyesight and we need to be covered up or we’ll spook them when they are coming in to land. The spot we came to was a pretty opened pool where ducks can land after flight.
Sunset was at 5:30 and we had to get set up quickly so we could take advantage of the 15-20 minutes of twilight right before sunset. We had to set up decoy ducks made of plastic in pairs of drake/hen, drake/hen, drake/hen (aka male/female) to try and fool more ducks to land near them. Then we setup shop near the pre-made duck blind and posted our own palm frawns into the mud to cover ourselves in the ganoe.
Shot Fired
No wonder Travis didn’t want to go on his own, this is a lot to know if you’ve never been by your self. At sunset, exactly 5:30 PM, we could no longer shoot so from about 5:12 to 5:29 we were posted up and ready to fire… but nothing came. Then, right as we were about to retire for the evening and call the day a wash, 2 ducks came flying straight at us.
“Can I shoot those Trav?”
“Where??”
“Behind you, right there!”
“Yes!! Uh oh, my safety’s on!”
BOOM!
I fired a shot just they went in front of us. No dice, but man my adrenaline was pumping! I was beginning to think it was all too much work and we weren’t going to have anything to show for it. But even firing one shot at the moving targets has me itching to go back out again as soon as possible.
Application
As we were heading in for the day, I couldn’t help but think about how much we needed to know about this to have a successful hunt. Yes, there is some dumb luck involved, but there are so many factors to take into account. The temperature, the time of day, the direction of the wind because they like to land into it, which animals are legal to take, the formation of our decoys in a “J” shape or a straight line, the ganoe placement, and more. I began to see why time is needed to become a good hunter.
In each of our professions, whether it’s commercial real estate or the manufacturing of shoe-laces, we need to be masters of our craft. If we don’t know about every facet of our business, we’re doing ourselves and our customers a disservice. We have to be experts in our respective fields.
If we spread our attention across multiple businesses or ideas, we’ll never be able to focus in on what can bring us the most benefit. If I really wanted to become and avid duck hunter, I’d need to apply myself vigorously to become a master at it. I would have to forgo some other hobbies and invest my time and money heavily into duck hunting.
Niching down our businesses allows us to be masters in our respective fields. It allows us to focus in on a small segment of the market to become masters of that particular craft. When we aren’t spread thin, we find that we can apply ourselves to the best of our abilities.
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What is your niche? How do you continue to master that craft?
Leave me a comment or connect with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear what you do to become a master of your niche.
P.S. 2 Days till Christmas!
