With scouting and all, we decided to head right back to Bruce's slough as there were still a couple hundred bird or more on the water. Dad wasn't going to get up here until morning so there was no hair-on-fire early hunt. When we pulled into the spot a little after 9:30am, we glassed the slough and made a game plan. A north wind generally means they are in the nearest corner of the slough which is an easy set, but with the location of most of the ducks, it was going to be a far trudge back to the corner again, on the north side where there is a lot of cattail marsh. We hauled gear and decoys out and begun our setup. The mud was fair at best and we busted an unholy number of birds when we got there, and we just waited for them to filter back into our corner.
It took all of three minutes for the first bird to come back. As I was back at the gear pile, getting my mask and coat on, a lone drake gadwall locked up and was dropping in. Dad made a flawless shot and it dropped into the water.
We waited a lot longer than we expected for more birds to work their way back. We had a small group of honkers come from the south and pass right over the top of us. We were able to pull one down, barely into the marsh and grass behind us. When it hit the ground it sounded louder than expected and not in cattails. I took Lou back to go find it and in two seconds she was locked in on it. Still, she would not retrieve it, but she found it for us nonetheless. As we worked our way back to the water, ducks were working our spread, so I hunkered down with Lou and waited. Dad was able to drop a widgeon out and the rest headed for the hills. We thought this was going to work quite well for our morning's hunt.
Unfortunately, it rarely pans out that way.
As the flocks started to descend on our slough, they dropped in without hesitating into the near corner; where we knew they were going to anyway.
A management decision to pull the plug started the process and Dad started the trudge while I grabbed decoys. We started all over again and dumped into the little corner pocket.
Once set up, I popped little teal that was swinging back after I flushed it out while setting dekes. What we were finding is that the birds did want into this corner, but moreover, they were getting a little decoy shy. We had done a lot of blasting at these birds and they were getting skittish. I made an awful shot on a gadwall, which of course, decided to die midflight out in the middle of the slough. Because Lou didn't see it go down, off in the mud we went. After retrieving and getting back to our gear, I had enough time to catch my breath before making another awful shot at a widgeon. Lou couldn't catch up with it, so AGAIN, through the mud I went. With some minor direction, the pup made short order of finding the bird. We made the long trudge on dry land around the pocket and back to Dad. We were taking awhile longer than usual, but we were picking off birds one at a time.
As unsurprising as it was, there were so many geese in the area, you could sit about anywhere and pass shoot them. As generally happens, a pair came in from behind us, and low. With the blasting we did, I am still amazed and ashamed we only pulled down one of the birds, but one splashed out in the muck.
......Out I go....
With jelly legs, I return with a stout South Dakota honker.
Just about the time we decided we needed to see another bird, a close one drops in from nowhere to our right.
A big, fat drake pintail!
We step forward and my shot whiffs and Dad scrapes him from the sky as he flares. Lou brings him mostly back to us and we have a nice sprig!
A hunt like this can go on all afternoon if we wanted but with four birds shy of our duck limit, we decided to pull the plug and get some food and a nap at home.
Stay Tuned
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