5 Things I Can’t Wait To Do/ See This Season

Matt Opsahl- Maverick Outfitters

Well, It’s still July and its still hot! This time of year gets a bit tricky for me. I’m swamped with every emotion and feeling in preparation for the upcoming season. I’m stressed, excited, prideful, curious, but mostly I’m just ready for the fall. We as a staff are in the thick of pre-season preparation. We’ve finished planting and we’re watching forecasts like a fat kid eyes the dessert menu when you first sit down at a restaurant. We’re stringing, repairing, and painting decoys. We’re repairing blinds and fighting bee’s. We’re cutting trails and pulling ticks out of places ticks should never be. We’re doing maintenance on trailers and side by sides, and the work doesn’t seem to end. The funny thing is and I ask myself this all the time, where the hell else would you rather be? The answer is absolutely no where. I can’t get enough of this work and maybe I have a problem, but I love it and I don’t want to be doing anything else. Now that I’m off my soap box, I decided to mix it up a bit this week. I’ve listed 5 things below that I simply cannot wait to do and experience again this upcoming season. I think anyone who waterfowl hunts will be able to relate to all of them.

1.) The morning routine before the first scout: 

I get up at 4AM every morning starting on August 18th. I do this so I’m used to the alarm for our Resident Goose season which kicks off on September 1st. My wife absolutely loves the fog horn alarm so I try and get out of bed pretty quickly so I don’t get assaulted. On the day of the first scout, I really have my routine set up. I need to be out the door at 5AM so that gives me an hour to do what I need to do. I get dressed, I take the dogs for a walk, and then I make coffee. Like any good waterfowl hunter, I sit at the table with the dogs usually right next to me. I scan my weather app, respond to a few emails, and start to mentally prep for what areas I’m going to check out. I make a coffee to go and I’m out the door. The thing I’m looking forward to most is the anticipation of what I’m going to see that morning. Will the birds do what I want them to do or am I going to be driving 90MPH to find them? 

2.) The night before the opener: 

I’ve never met a good waterfowl hunter who doesn’t have some sort of pre- opening day ritual. For me, it’s always the same. Start with the truck. I check my tire pressure, my tool box to make sure I have everything I need just in case something goes wrong, and I double check that I put my bibs/ waders, gun, water bowl for the dogs, calls, extra shells, and my blind bag in the truck. Then I move to the trailer and make sure that I have the right decoys loaded, I check the tire pressure on it as well, and I make sure she’s hooked up and ready to go for the morning. Once I’ve done my checklist, it’s time for my pre-opener routine. I don’t have a specific meal or anything, but I do have a movie I watch every single year, It’s Jeremiah Johnson. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it, you can thank me later. The reason I love this routine is because of the memories it provides me with the night before the opener. I remember loading the truck up with my dad the night before the opener, eating some sort of beans and hot dog combination, and watching either a John Wayne movie or Jeremiah Johnson. My opener routine is just as much about the excitement of the upcoming season as it is about remembering my first opener and every single one after that. 

3.) The first cold front: 

In Maryland, when it gets cold, the hunting is just on another level and I think that’s pretty fair to say for any state within a decent flyway. Cold fronts bring a ton of excitement, but they also bring a ton of work. I’m not talking about weather in the mid 30’s to low 40’s. I’m talking about fronts that drop temperatures into the low teens and mid 20’s. What I’m looking forward to most is dealing with the ice. There are very few things that I look forward to more than setting ice eaters and firing up generators. Only good things come to waterfowl hunters when ice forms. I love the work associated with ice hunting. You’re breaking ice with an axe, chainsaw, or sledge hammer, sweating through whatever clothes I’m wearing, and refilling generators at all hours of the day and night. The reason I love it is the reward on the next day and hopefully weeks to come. You really earned those birds. It just makes the whole experience that much sweeter. 

4.) Scouting with the fellas: 

If you’ve played sports or been apart of a close knit team then I think we can all agree that when a team is really working in unison, there is nothing better. Let me paint you a picture, you’re driving and checking properties in the northern part of the state, you’ve got another guy checking properties to the East, another guy checking properties to the West, and a 4th guy checking properties to the South. Everyone is calling each other with updates and making valid points as to where to hunt. You’re talking wind, weather, pressure, everything you can think of. You eventually come up with a game plan on where to take what groups, but that’s not what creates the “magic”. This article is about what I’m looking forward to. What I’m looking forward to is our staff and team busting our asses to come up with a game plan that we’re all confident in. Waterfowl hunting when done right is a team sport and I can’t wait for my team to be back together doing what we all love to do.

5.) Celebrating the first great moment: 

I’m a believer in celebrating wins, I don’t care how big or small the win is. Life is too short to not celebrate wins. Any waterfowl hunter who has had a truly great moment in a blind knows the feeling I’m talking about. To us, it’s like winning the super bowl. It can be anything, someone calling a bird for the first time into the decoys, a dog’s first retrieve, a kids first duck, an old timers limit, someone shooting a double or triple, or even someones first band. The moment deserves to be celebrated. Fortunately for me as a guide, I get to see a fair amount of “firsts”. It’s a hell of a feeling to be apart of it, and I can’t wait to see someone light up with a joy that’s hard to describe!