I stood in shoulder-high cattails and watched day brighten on 

 one of the last free duck-hunting areas in the United States. By 

 "free" I mean a great reach of wilderness marsh where a hunter 

 can go out on his own and be pretty sure of gathering in a limit 

 of wildfowl. 



And what a land it is this vast sweep of water and grass and 

 mangrove below the Tamiami Trail in southwestern Florida. 

 South of the Trail are thousands of wild acres, not heavily 

 hunted or fished and not too difficult to penetrate, yet north 

 just a mile from my grass point blind I could hear the hum of 

 auto traffic speeding tourists eastward into Miami for the Christ- 

 mas holidays. 



Guns whoomed to the southeast. Now with sun, the marsh was 

 awakening. Bitterns squawked and curlews called. South toward 

 the Gulf, ducks were milling and climbing. Nose high, two 

 bluewings cut past my hat brim. Before my gun was half up, 

 they were around the point and gone. 



The birds Ted had moved swung wide and circled up our 

 channel. I whistled. The flock tightened their turn with wings 

 cupped they came low over the mangroves, looking for the 

 whistler. 



A blast from Walt's stand broke the flight open; a bird went 

 down in a long, slanting fall. A lone drake broke away, circling 

 over me. I didn't tighten the curve on my lead enough the first 

 shot. But the second barrel, as he towered, brought him down. 



Our cannonade moved other small formations into the sky. 

 Reports sounded below in Ted's neck of the swamp. Guns 

 boomed behind us to the west. 



There were too many cruising flocks to watch. Squatting low, 

 I marveled for the first time in years at the sight of a duck-filled 

 sky. 



Two mallards were flying in from ahead. The first one I cen- 

 tered hard. But the second was home free by five feet. They're 

 never as slow as you figure, I alibied. And, well-scared by the 

 blast of high velocity, can those big babies pick up spe^d! 



Two down and two to go. "Slow up," I told myself. 



Now, over the great sweep of marsh reaching to the Gulf of 



57 



