On May 13 I woke up with an unusual sensation in my right ear, which felt as if it were filled with water, as sometimes occurs while swimming.
This was the Monday after this year's fishing opener, and as I pounded the palm of my right hand against the side of my head, trying to free up whatever was blocking my ear, I recalled that the day earlier, while waiting to load my boat from Upper Red Lake, a truck had backfired near me, producing a sound similar to that of a gunshot.
Other than being startled, I didn't think much of it. Now I wondered whether that was the reason my right ear felt stuffed and, worse, was producing no sounds I could decipher — none.
Like a lot of hunters and shooters, particularly those who grew up when hearing protection wasn't emphasized to the degree it is now, I was aware even before this malfunction that my hearing wasn't great.
Rifle hunting for deer since I was 12 was one reason. Being able to hear while sitting in a deer stand is critical to success, and relatively few hunters — including me, for most of my life — want to cover their ears to protect against the sound of gunfire if it reduces their chances of hearing an approaching whitetail.
That said, most deer hunters kill animals with a single shot. So whatever damage a rifle might do to one's hearing, at least it occurs only once, or at most a handful of times a year.
The type of hunting that really threatens a shooter's hearing is instead the type that begins one-half hour before sunrise Saturday, when ducks and geese become legal fare in Minnesota.
It's then that some hunters will shoot a box of 25 shells or more — bang, bang, bang — perhaps because teal, wood ducks, mallards or ringnecks are plentiful where they're hunting. Or perhaps because they are not very good wingshooters.