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DAN GUNDERSON: It's 6 o'clock on a rainy, windy morning when I meet Andy Anderson at the intersection of two Otter Tail County roads. I follow his tail lights down the twisting, muddy track to his hunting shack. Inside the small three-room cabin, Andy's brother-in-law, Don Mellum, has the coffee pot ready. Both men have been hunting ducks for more than 50 years. That's thousands of hours of sitting in the rain, snow, and bitter wind of October.

ANDY ANDERSON: Hunters got to be a little crazy because they get up in the middle of the night, and the rough weather they like the best. And so you got to be a little crazy. But to me, the biggest thrill is to see some ducks flying and see the wing set coming into your decoys. To me, there's no bigger thrill.

My son enjoys hunting. My grandson, now, who's eight years old, has been out here. This was his-- I think, his third opening weekend of duck hunting. So it's a tradition that-- one of my neatest birthday cards I ever got is, he made a handmade card of two people in a duck blind. And he says, grandpa, that's you and me. So that's neat.

DAN GUNDERSON: About 6:20, it's time to leave the warmth of the kitchen table behind.

ANDY ANDERSON: Well, it looks dark out yet, but it's getting close to shooting time. So we maybe should head out. Usually, the first shoot is the best, right away, the first half hour.

DAN GUNDERSON: An inquisitive six-month-old yellow lab named Otter waits eagerly by the front door.

ANDY ANDERSON: Otter, you get to come along. Come on, Otter. Come on, girl.

DAN GUNDERSON: A few hundred feet from the cabin, a boardwalk a couple feet wide leads into the rushes and cattails.

ANDY ANDERSON: You got your flashlight, Don?

DON MELLUM: Yeah.

ANDY ANDERSON: OK. Here's a boardwalk that starts. Just take it slow, and watch your footing here, because it's not a superhighway. Here's a narrow spot.

DAN GUNDERSON: A short, precarious walk brings us to the duck blind, a small deck with a wooden bench about 10 feet long, mounted on pontoons. A wall of camouflage netting is stretched around the deck, about waist high. It hides the hunters and provides some protection against the wind and rain.

ANDY ANDERSON: First few shots in the morning, you probably got to be ready because you don't see them very far out, and it's still tough to see. Right Don?

DON MELLUM: Yeah, that's for sure.

DAN GUNDERSON: Andy and Don settle in to wait as the first gray tinge of dawn begins to color the sky.

ANDY ANDERSON: Say, Otter, it looks like somebody's been chewing on the blind. I wonder who that could be. Huh? Who could that be? That wouldn't be you, would it? I bet it was. You won't get by with that with me. No, you--

[GUNSHOTS FIRED]

Well, we just heard our first shots across the lake.

DAN GUNDERSON: Someone has found ducks. It's barely light enough to make out the decoys bobbing a few yards in front of the blind.

ANDY ANDERSON: Well, we'll have a cup of coffee and see if that brings any ducks down. Huh? You think that will, Otter? Huh? It might. Yes. Oh, yes.

Lots of times when you pour a cup of coffee, that brings something in because then you got your hands full, and you got to set the coffee down and get your gun. And it doesn't always work, but sometimes helps.

No. I don't think-- No. You stay here. You stay here. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's a little bit boring right now, but there may be some more ducks coming.

Sometimes, you get concerned about these puppies. You wonder if they realize they're a dog or if they think they're human. You can almost see when she retrieved her first duck yesterday by how proud she was. She knew she did a good thing. And it was in a little slough in the woods, and she kind of strutted along a little bit. Didn't you? Sure.

You haven't got it all figured out, but you're getting-- thinking about it, aren't you?

[DUCK WHISTLE BLOWN]

Neither one of us claim to be expert callers, but we do the feed chatter, which on the divers, the ring bills, and the blue bills seems to work pretty well.

Heard one right over here. Don.

[DUCK CALLING]

Well, that one was-- almost could have hit with the end of the gun barrel.

DON MELLUM: Right. Right.

ANDY ANDERSON: That's what happens when you're not paying attention. Right. Isn't that right, Otter? Yeah. You could have got that one, almost.

DAN GUNDERSON: Conversation is sparse as the two men intently scan the horizon.

ANDY ANDERSON: I took early retirement now, so I'm retired and out of my company. But one of my goals is to hunt virtually every day this fall. So many years I could only hunt weekends. And a couple of years when the best flight came through, I was away out of town on a business meeting. And so I missed it, and the single going North.

Boy, they're hard to see in that tree line. Ooh, there's one right there, Don.

[GUNSHOTS FIRED]

In my opinion, there was a lot more ducks when I was younger. I grew up on a farm south of Fergus, about five miles, and that's, kind of, the pothole country. And opening day of duck hunting, if we didn't fill out within an hour away, we thought it was a complete bust. And lots of times, it was 15, 20 minutes. And now-- well, last weekend here, we got 10 ducks for five guys in two days of hunting.

But like I say, it's less important to the amount you kill and so forth. It's seeing them and being outdoors that attracts us. So it's not that big a deal. But I like to see birds, whether we get shots or not. That's not too critical, but I love to see them. And like I say, we come down in the evening without guns and just watch them fly.

DAN GUNDERSON: About 9 o'clock with two ducks in the bag, it's time to call it quits. But Andy Anderson expects to be back here tomorrow, and every day for the rest of this duck-hunting season. Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio.