TAKE ME TO THE RIVER
For the Love of the Ducks
By Craig Sasser
My introduction to waterfowl started very early at the age of four. Henry Stevens, one of my dad’s lifelong friends, often teased me later in life about how I cried on my first duck hunt after my dad shot a drake wood duck and immediately handed it to me after he retrieved it. Henry would joke with me about how Dad was deeply concerned that his son might not follow in his footsteps and become an avid duck hunter due to my oversensitive personality. A few years later I recall spending a Saturday pulling grass out of ditches with my dad on a hot August afternoon. I was completely exhausted afterwards and slept on the way home and even while my father carried me into the house and put me in bed. When I woke up that evening, I discovered that he had purchased an aquarium for me and filled it with fish that we had inadvertently caught while pulling out mats of invasive ditch grass called Brazilian Elodea. Little did he know, or I for that matter, that all of these experiences were shaping me into the wildlife biologist that I have been lucky enough to make into a lifelong career.
