The boys -- tired, wet and cold from pedaling their bicycles 2 miles down the gravel road in a driving rain -- were going duck hunting. It was getting late by the time the boys reached the flooded field, and the already dim light was beginning to fade. There wasn't much legal time left, and after they waded into the middle of the field, it was almost gone.

But a passel of ducks had been here; they'd flown noisily away as the boys entered the field. They figured the ducks would be back.

They found a levee firm enough to hold them and sat down in the mud to wait. They were already as wet as it was possible to be, so a little more mud and water wouldn't matter any.

Sure enough, the ducks came back. The first shots the boys fired that afternoon may have been legal, but the ones thereafter definitely were not. Daylight was leaving fast, and the boys soon had to face west to make out the ducks against the darkening sky. When they shot, great gouts of flame spouted from their barrels. The boys marveled at this each time they pulled the trigger, but neither gave any thought to stopping.

Had the boys been experienced wingshots, they could have killed several dozen ducks in that rainy field that afternoon. But luckily they weren't. Mostly, they just made a lot of noise and shot a lot of shells -- shells that had cost them the princely sum of 12 cents apiece at the local hardware store.  They shot 15 of those expensive shells apiece, and when they finally slogged out of the flooded field in full darkness, they weren't carrying much besides their empty shotguns.

They'd killed only one duck, in fact, an unlucky hen whose day to die had evidently been pre-ordained. She could just as likely have been struck by lightning, but instead she collided with one of the swarms of shot the boys were throwing enthusiastically but unskillfully into the air.  She died cleanly in mid-air, and nearly knocked one of the boys off the levee when she fell.  

I won't tell you the identity of one of those boys, but the one who killed the duck was me, and the year was 1960. I'm going to have to live with the knowledge that the very first mallard I ever killed was an illegal one.

There followed several more years during which my friends and I played loose with the laws designed to protect the duck. We never violated with the abandon or ruthlessness of professional poachers, and I don't remember ever feeling the urge to break a law just because it existed. We just didn't let regulations inconvenience us much, that's all. The bunch of bloodthirsty young Dan'l Boones I ran with didn't lose much sleep over the ethics of sneaking up on a bunch of feeding mallards in a field and raking them with everything we had. Nor did we feel any qualms about shooting early or late, or about bringing in a limit in the morning and going back out that afternoon. There were plenty of ducks, after all, so where was the harm?

No matter what the waterfowl population happens to be, there's an acceptable level of harvest associated with it.  Stay within that harvest level, and things will be fine. Exceed it, and you'll hurt the population.

1. You're a better person than I am.
2. You have a faulty memory.
3. You didn't hunt ducks.

That sort of attitude, and that sort of behavior, is no longer as widespread as it used to be. The conservation ethic has come to the land, and while I won't go so far as to say all duck hunters are law-abiding people, a good number of them are. Breaking the law has become something to be ashamed of rather than something to brag about. Left-handed progress, maybe, but progress all the same.

Nowadays, we know where the harm was. In the late 1980s, waterfowl populations dropped to their second-lowest levels in history, and season lengths and bag limits were cut to reduce the kill and help the birds recover.  It worked; today the ducks are back, and this fall's 105 million bird flight is little short of phenomenal.

Think twice before shooting a few minutes early or helping a buddy round out his limit.

That's where the illegal kill of waterfowl becomes important.  The legal kill can be controlled through season length and bag limits; the illegal kill cannot. And even though we have a record number of ducks in this year's fall flight, this peak population won't hold. It never does.

That's why we all need to think a little harder before committing those "minor" infractions against the duck laws: shooting a few minutes early or late, or helping a buddy round out his limit, or double-dipping by hunting in the afternoon after taking a limit that morning.

We tell ourselves we're really ethical hunters, that those are minor transgressions. They're not nearly as bad as, say, killing ducks by the wheelbarrow full over a baited field. That way, we can lie to ourselves and justify our shady actions without half trying, thus: I don't get to go duck hunting very often, and I bought all that expensive gear and paid for my license and stamps, and by gosh, I ought to be able to shoot a few ducks when I get a chance. After all, I hunted yesterday and didn't fire a shot. Anyway, what difference does it make if a duck dies three minutes before shooting hours? What difference does it make if I killed an extra duck or two today rather than yesterday, when I didn't get any?  They're dead ducks either way, aren't they?

Sound familiar? I thought it might.

And yeah, it's true enough, they're dead ducks either way. When we think in those terms, it's not all that hard to justify our minor transgressions to ourselves. But if we do that, and if we keep committing these minor transgressions and thereby sabotaging our own integrity and credibility, we will eventually do one of two things. Either we will hurt future duck populations so badly during some inevitable time of low duck populations that the season is closed entirely, or we will so damage ourselves in the eyes of the non-hunting majority that we will lose our right to hunt at the ballot box.