The birds hesitated, then circled back.

As they winged overhead 10 yards out, Seitzer commanded “take ‘em” and we all sat up, guns blazing. Two bird crumpled into the adjacent alfalfa.

We quickly reloaded as the remaining two made a wide circle. Some more pleading from the callers and the pair — probably young-of-year birds to be so gullible — obligingly circled back within range. A couple of shotguns barked and we climbed from our blinds to collect our birds-a-piece.

An hour later, another flock — a dozen or so birds — investigated the spread. On one pass, they winged barely 10 feet high over our blinds, so close we could hear the air through their feathers.

A crack at them, their legs dangling as they settled into the decoys, seemed to be a good possibility. We waited for one last pass.

Instead, for reasons only known to them, they swung back to the south and vanished over the tops of the corn fields.

For the rest of the morning, we watched a few distant flocks that clearly had other destinations on their mind. Around us, hundreds of mourning doves settled into the field, leaving us to consider an outing for that feathered rocket for which the hunting season also opened on Saturday.

Finally, beneath a blue bird sky, we called it a day and began the task of retrieving and loading a hundred or so decoys, the flags, blinds and other gear into the trailer.

This time, the old man lent a hand.

John Cross is a Free Press staff writer. Contact him at 344-6376 or by e-mail at jcross@mankatofreepress.com.