What comes to mind when you think about or speak about duck hunting of shooting geese in the cold? I can't think about waterfowling without some thoughts coming to mind, both sounds and smells. I hear mallards complaining as they flush in the pitch black dark on the run out to the blind.
First flights of geese, long before shooting time, telling you they are leaving now!
Wet dog coming back into blind, giving you a bird and begging for a bite of your sausage-biscuit.
Sleet bouncing of the silly-wets.
Dead goose making large "Whoomp!" as it hits the frozen cornfield and bounces.
Soft sounds of geese as they lock up with cupped wings and start the glide into the blocks.
Smell of hot coffee and the jolly sound as it perks in the blind.
Heady smell of Hoppe's No 9 as the gun is pulled from the case.
Snick, snick sound of a pump shotgun being loaded.
Smell and sound of Vienna's roasting over the fire, still sizzling in the can.
Smoked oysters on Ritz crackers - funny, I never ever ate any canned, smoked oysters except in the boat or the duck blind. Why is that?
Smell of snow in your nose as you put your face up over the edge of the pit, turning your face into the cold, biting wind.
Enjoying the lingering smell of the burned powder in the long, red Super-X hull you just fired.
So, share your thoughts and memories. What comes to mind when you see that mallards or the Canada geese in the park? I'm sure not tough enough to look at them without thinking of them locked up and hanging over the dekes with me swinging on them!

I think you have it covered pretty well Trapper. You have obviously been there.

A couple thoughts that often come to my mind:

(As I leave the house) What is wrong with me?
- this has to be crazy.

(As I set out in the boat) Hope this SOB doesn't hit a log and turn over.

(When the rig is out and its still dark and we hear a whish of wings and a skittering splash as 3 Gadwalls slip into the decoys) How long is it til shooting time?

(About an hour into the hunt) I wish I could see as far as I used to.

(In the second hour) If I go pee now they will come for sure.

(At the cafe) Glad I went this morning - when we going next?

Couple of further thoughts - more to come for sure!
As to being able to 'see far off' My late father beat all I have ever seen. When he said "Coupla ducks coming, look low at about two o'clock ther was no need at all for me to start looking - in fact, I had time to make a sandwich and pour a coffee before I could even see them. And by then he knew how many, how high and what kind they were. I guess that come from some 70 years of hunting experience, experience like you and I will never have.
Also will always remember the words of 'Mr. Pye', and old Cajun that taught me to call ducks with my thumb and finger - from the many many things he told me, "You cain't kill dat doick if you shoot where he at, you goin' have to shoot where he goin' be!" True words and good advice.
Oh, did I mention the smells? Seems I can close my eyes and smell it still, all the things and stuff associated wtih the hunt - wet dogs, gumbo mud, burned powder, snow in the wind, and on and on. I'll sure be glad when Saturday gets here!

The main thought I used to get in a blind on a morning looking at what I was sure never would see a dawn (on those infrequent occasions when I yielded to the lure of the image on the calendars in those days and accepted invitations from previously unsuspected lunatics - I grew up jump shooting ducks) was (with apologies to Jimmy Durante) " I shudda stood in bed!"

I love the foggy sunrises over the bays, the sideways snow and frozen rain. i love the ice on my beard/moustache, the smell of my wool shirts and the burn of the cold as it grips my fingers. i love the pictures of my grandfather and his buddies with their birds laid out across the fender of some old car and the men looking serious in their tweed jackets and white shirts, cigars permanently screwed in the corners of their mouths. i love the quiet of the water and the anticipation of a flock of canadians coming into the wind to check out the dekes. i love the supersonic buffleheads, the elusive blacks and mallards and many thousand blue bills flocked up moving back and forth across the bay. i love coming home empty, never having fired a shot but tired anyway from anticipation.