I spent a couple afternoons scouting out and knocking on doors trying to find permission for duck hunting on some of the sloughs around here. It was a lot more disheartening to find out that there are a lot of outfitters that have a pretty decent foothold on the area. With that said, I bit the bullet and asked the same landowner that let me dove hunt if I could duck hunt a corner pocket slough in the middle of a section. Not only did he let me hunt it, he gave me an updated plat book, and pointed out a few more that he owns that he thought I should take a crack at.
Morning of the opener, I decided to hunt the original mid section slough. I was able to drive right up to it, drop off my stuff, and hide the car back up by the road. I managed to stumble my way to a my setup, and I threw out my decoys as best as I thought possible. I had 20 minutes before legal light and I was swimming in ducks. I had pintails out in front, teal within feet of me and the inconsolable pup, and divers bombing in over my head. Legal light came and went, and I didn't fire a shot.
I panicked. I just could not believe the amount of waterfowl I was witnessing.
Most of them had moved out well out of range, but I had random ducks still buzzing around. I finally took a pop shot at a passing teal. On the water! Then all hell broke loose.
There were now 200+ ducks coming off the water and they were swirling around me in droves. I was shooting and loading as fast as I could shoot. I managed to pull out a drake mallard but that was it.
Once we got the birds that were down in the bag, things came in waves. It was a fair set but I managed.
Midway through my morning I had pintail circling my set. I had never shot a pintail before and I was not about to let this one get away. I unloaded my gun without touching a feather. As he passed over head I managed to put a mag goose load in and popped him over my shoulder!
It wasn't a full plumage bird, but it was my first sprig!
The whole morning I was pulling down whatever would get close enough. I wanted to give Mocha as many chances at retrieves as possible. She was having a blast!
At some point I had a pair of geese land just on the other side of point, and something spooked them, and they flew right at me. I somehow managed with all of my crappy shooting to pull both of them down. One was stoned, feet up, the other was crippled and swimming away. I burned way too many shells trying to finish them off. This whole time Mocha had no idea what the hell to do. She was whining and looking back at me, and she got half way out to the bird and panicked. She just stopped swimming and started wailing in the middle of this duck slough.
I thought this was it; the end for my pup.
I managed to get her moving again and just come back to me. I got her settled down and she acted as if it never happened. I guess I can't blame her, as she has been basically non-exposed to birds any larger than these ducks.
I finished off my last shell with a mallard that slipped in to my left. I jumped it and Mocha retrieved it flawlessly.
We took a few pics before hauling the gear back to field edge.
At this point I am out of shells and my car is a half mile up the field edge. As I drop my gear I have a flock mallards and a pair of geese fly at a golf clubbable distance above me. I am short a duck for my limit, and I can still shoot 6 more geese, if I so chose to do so. I haul back to the car, drive down, collect stuff, grab the last few shells I had stashed in the car, and then head back to the down wind side of the slough to pick up my geese. I managed my last duck as I rounded the corner.
I managed five teal(two bonus for the first 16 days of the season), two mallards, a pintail and two giant bonus geese.
I burned through more shells that I am proud to admit, but with all of the mud slogging, and fair duck retrieving, I figured this was as fantastic of a start to any fall as I have had in years. I love deer hunting, but this was the change I needed.
Stay Tuned.
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