A Cold Hunt
It was a cold Saturday morning. I woke up at 3:15am. Boots. Hat. Coat. Gloves. Shotgun. I was ready to hunt some Sandhill Crane. My friends and I loaded up two F-250s and drove to Wharton, a small city an hour southwest of Houston, TX. The cloudless night revealed a crescent moon and an array of stars—normally invisible from my hazy, polluted city. From the trucks, we transferred our gear to the outfitter's ATV and drove over uneven ground through sloshy mud and tall grass. The outfitter set up narrow blinds and applied his chainsaw to surrounding brush, which we placed in front of the blinds for additional camouflage. He also set up decoys which looked alarmingly similar to the birds we would be hunting. I thanked Poseidon for my rain boots as I trudged through the mud, trying not to trip, and took my spot next to the outfitter. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and the outfitter told us to duck, as low as we could. "Sandhill Cranes have amazing eyesight," he ...