After Dad and I had a spectacular hunt on public the morning prior, we drove around for the evening scouting potential hunting spots for the second day of our opener weekend. With the amount of birds that were on this particular slough, we would be DUMB to not hunt it in the morning. With the lack of urgency to blast out at O' dark-thirty, Dad got up and went to church in Henry, and when he returned we were mostly ready to head back out. A little tired and sore from the previous morning's hunt, it felt good to get an extra hour of sleep for both of us.
It was windy, cloudy, and little chilly; perfect duck hunting conditions. As we had anticipated, there were still 200+ ducks on the slough when we got there. We made a game plan from the car and headed out. It was a spectacle when the birds flushed from the water! We got set up and waited for the birds to start filtering back in. We had set up where a boat-load of birds were feeding before we flushed them, but when they started coming back, they all headed to the back corner. We managed to pick up two birds from this post, but it was not the feet down in the spread like last year.
One passing widgeon was pulled down by Dad, a poor shot at best, and I had to slog after it with pup. I was less than pleased...
We again, made the decision and pulled the dekes. We repositioned to the back corner where the birds wanted to be, and again waited for their return. It took all of 2 minutes and we had birds pouring back in.
We doubled on a group of gadwalls and should have finished off the second but I had Dad hold off for no true reason. Again, Lou and I were slopping our way across the slough to catch up with it. what I didn't understand was, the bird was not drifting away from us because of the wind, it was still alive and SWIMMING away. There was no catching ground on this one. By the time I got over there Lou and I searched to no avail. Another single widgeon worked the spread across the way and Dad had a clear shot so he took it, sailing the bird over to far side of the pocket...Dammit. Lou blasted over to its general location and searched there as well. We now had two lost birds. I dragged my fat sweaty ass over to Lou and tried to get her to find this one. What I lacked to understand is Lou had already found it and stashed it on a dry spot...When I finally got her to bring it back to me we began our slog back to the blind. I started yelling for Dad to see where he was, when a nice drake pintail was just dropping gear and on the outskirts of our spread. I am literally standing in the middle of nowhere when the bird flushed off of the water.
BLAM!...
BLAM!...
BLAM! Finally!!!
Lou commenced her screaming swim/run across the mud and water over to the downed bird. By the time I made it back to the blind, there was sweat pooling in my boots, and I could barely stand.
Holy order of out of shape.
Despite the debacle of winged birds, and shitty mud, it was an adventure to remember. It didn't take much more than 20 minutes after that to finish off our limit of birds, one of which was a teal so close it almost hit Lou in the face when it landed. One really lucky shot stunned it enough for Lou to finish my dirty work. The low shot did however put a decent hurt on one of my decoys; oops.
As exhausted as we were, it was a splendid shoot. This body of water has produced great numbers and a magnificent show each time we hunt it. Despite the great shooting, I think I will start scouting water with sand bottom instead of widow-maker mud.
Stay Tuned
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