When I awoke on the morning of my draw duck hunt, the forecast still called for rain. By the time legal shooting time arrived, what fell from the skies could hardly be called rain.

I had been drawn to hunt at the East Side of Santee Delta Wildlife Management Area (WMA) near Georgetown. There was only a drizzle falling when I pulled off Highway 17 North into the WMA's parking lot. Other hunters milled about before all of us gathered in the area's check station to draw for our blinds.

After being dropped off at the paddleboat that I would use to get to the blind, I stood for a moment to soak in the vastness of the marsh. The moist air dampened any highway noise from Highway 17, where traffic this time of day was light. The wind hardly budged and the thick rain clouds overhead seemed to press down heavily.

And the marsh was stirring with the sound of ducks.

Tucked between the North and South Santee rivers, Santee Delta WMA, while pushing nearly 2,000 acres in size, is only a tiny piece of real estate in the rivers' expansive delta. I took a glance to the east where the sun should have been sketching the sky orange before I shoved the boat off the bank. It was like looking down a long pipe: Darkness engulfed the horizon.

After the brief paddle, it didn't take long to set out the 10 decoys I had toted along. I snugly pulled the paddleboat in between the blind frame, and waited for legal shooting time.

I had time to relax, so I leaned on the blind frame and stared over the weeds covering the frame. A dull sound grew louder from the west. The rain was picking up.

The overcast sky seemed to be bulging with the form of an overfilled water balloon getting ready to burst.

It did.

In an instant I could not make out my decoys. A quiet marsh was now awash in a drilling and deafening downpour. All I could do was pull up my hood, tuck my head and watch my equipment start to float in the paddleboat like rubber ducks in a bathtub.

There was no lightning or thunder, but it was raining so hard I'm not sure I could have seen or heard any if there was some. The start of shooting hours, usually a time of high anticipation, came and went with the ease of flipping a light switch. I hadn't budged from the seat of the paddleboat.

Fifteen minutes into legal shooting time, I was frustrated and decided I was going to watch my decoys. Good thing I did because I plugged a gadwall that must have been flying by aviation instruments. The rain slacked off, and by later in the morning I had completed my three-bird limit (the limit at the time) with a pair of teal.

Over the last 16 duck seasons, I have gunned on six different parcels of marsh, some more than one season, provided by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) in their draw duck hunt program. Like this particular hunt at Santee Delta WMA, all have been adventures that have left indelible memories.