My job was finding ducks for the youth weekend, and I’d struck out all day until my last stop—a shallow wetland with a thick clump of willows in the middle. It didn’t seem like a wood duck spot to me, ...

BRAINERD — It was not what we wanted to see as Rolf Moen, of Nisswa, and his German short-haired pointer Sally, and I motored my duck boat in predawn darkness. What greeted us were flashlights ...