As I carried my rowing shell down to the river side this morning, a warm October morning with the river so calm it looked like a mirror, and light wisps of fog clinging to the riverside trees, I tried to remember when Duck season was set to begin. I knew it was somewhere in the first week of October.
So it was not too surprising, as I sculled past the Wilder Wildlife Management Area, a half kilometer upriver, that a gunshot rang out. Close by! I looked toward the sound and saw a duck falling from the sky, and a puff of gunsmoke hovering over the wetland I knew was behind the row of riverside bushes. I paused, listened closely, and could hear the murmur of conversation a few hundred meters away, where the duck hunters were celebrating Opening Day.
Good thing I have a bright red shell and wear a bright red jersey when I row. Still, I think I’ll head downriver next time.
David Kotz 
So today I rowed down-river instead. A few hundred meters below the dock I passed a hunter, in camo, standing on a small island surrounded by his decoy ducks and geese. He watched me pass by, and then again on my way home. I’m surrounded by duck hunters!