The tang of seawater stings my lips with the jet sled bobbing behind me in the tide. In it, my fifty-year-old Remington nestled among the decoys and shell bags. If toppled, the shotgun is lost to the salty depths.
A clear day between storms in San Pablo Bay. The water drab and silty on this Sunday, the very last day of duck season. We launch the kayaks through the muck and detritus. The mud so thick and goopy, if my foot gets stuck, I’ll no doubt end up a peg leg. But the birds are here and our hopes are high.
Paddling with lazy cumulus clouds and the sun above, wind at my chest, saltwater sloshing my legs and cheeks, there’s no time to dwell on the surprising charm of this squalid slough. The dingy kayak willfully fights back against my strained forearms trying to propel me across the pelagic marsh. The wafting jet sled is roped to a carabiner clamped to my stern. The line goes taught with each paddle, then limp when I pause to ease my screaming shoulders.
Diver ducks and shorebirds dart overhead to get a closer look at this peculiar pirate in a bright blue log with a floating hull of odds and ends tied behind him. A few of those odds and ends look weirdly familiar, like replicas of fellow mallards and pintail and teal seen around this bog.
The far shore of the lagoon looked closer when we launched, but now looks further and further the harder I paddle. There are ducks around, even a pintail or two, but are they worth this particular trouble?
The paddling is quiet and solitary and exuberant. If it weren’t for the stream of cars on the highway behind me, I could be a member of the native Pomo tribe, venturing into the murky mudflats and pickleweed marshes for a chance at a striper or harbor seal or canvasback to fill my evening belly.
Instead, I look like a madman stuck in a bygone era in these tidal marshes while Teslas and Mercedes wail by on their way to wineries and restaurants, passengers adorned in their fancy capris and oversize hats. No matter, this is more adventure than they’ll have on this day, freer than they’ll be on a Sunday afternoon on the outskirts of two urban jungles. In fact, I can see the Salesforce building off in the fogged skyline of San Francisco. And the signs of bipeds are all around, in the flotsam we passed on the paddle out and the raggedy remnants of clothes and tires and coolers that dot the shore.
When we reach the far bank after forty-five minutes of oaring, the usual setup begins. Decoys, wind decoy, marsh chair, lock, load, and scan the horizon. This time though, we must hide two neon-colored kayaks in the tules far behind us. These ducks have seen it all though, a big blue rotund plastic hump of a kayak likely wouldn’t bust them from our setup.
We sit for an hour on an abnormally warm January day (my car says 77 degrees when I return to it). An occasional bufflehead or spoonie took a peek, then veered away. Too much water for them, and too much company for them to join elsewhere. Around midday, the siren song of the ham sandwich called to us.
As I unwrapped my ham and cheddar slathered in mayo, a bufflehead splashes down into the spread. I drop my Dutch Crunch and raise up ole Mr. Remington. The salty water explodes around the diminutive duck, my spread of bbs still pretty tight at thirty yards. The buffleheaded rascal is gone though, diving into the three-foot depths and using his maritime expertise to outsmart this mud-ridden bindlestiff of a hunter.
I raise my head from the walnut stock in confusion and admiration for this trickster of a male bufflehead and his iridescent head then rises above the chestnut water. I drew a bead on him again, this time smacking him before he dives again. A flying duck is dropped, so I suppose a diving duck is upped.
I hurried to launch the hidden kayak and scoop up his deflated body before the tide could take him further down the estuary. His iridescence even more impressive in hand, his spirit in my kayak on the paddle back making the mad pursuit of the day gratifying.
