Give Me My Stuff!

Once upon a time out at the Rhodes Point duck blind, I saw a good friend turn into a fiend.

Kelly Murphy and I had hunted all day and killed almost a limit of ducks. I was a few birds ahead of her, so I put away my gun and told her to kill the last couple birds. A flock came by and she missed.

I could tell she was a little agitated but she reloaded and sat back down. Another flock another miss. She was really getting upset by now, so I just got as small as I could and never said a word. Nothing flew for a few minutes and she got worse and worse. Cursing and complaining about everything involved in the hunt.

I could see she was so upset that she wasn't going to be able to hit anything, so very quietly I started gathering up our gear and putting it away. I thought I might as well save us a little time. Then came another duck and another terrible miss. She turned around towards me in a screaming frenzy and spied me putting some of her gloves and shell boxes into a gunning bag. She lashed out at me "Give me my stuff!"

I tried to explain to her that I was just cleaning up the blind, to expedite our departure. But she grabbed all her gear, like I had really intended on stealing it. She crammed it into the gunning bag and unloaded her gun and put it away as well.

Undaunted, I got my gun back out and loaded up for the next pass of ducks.

After what seemed like an eternity, a pair flew over the decoys and I ended our hunt.

When we got out into the river to start picking up the decoys, I asked her if she really thought I was stealing her gear and she smiled and said no. She was just so exasperated at missing 3 straight ducks that her temper got the best of her.

I will refrain from ever putting any pressure on her again. I also won't steal any of her stuff!