Jon's Never Ending Odyssey: Opener at Widgwall

Traditions have dictated that Dad and I start our waterfowl season off with a bang, literally.

This year we opted to start our season off by hitting the "easy" button so-to-speak. Widgwall is a slough we have hunted many times and have enjoyed some great shoots on, and with Dad's leg bothering him a bit, we decided something close was a great option. While Dad worked on gear and dropping off the car at the top of the hill, I worked out our decoy spread. It was another year on the marsh and the duck mud was thick. Akin to our dove hunts this year, things were not as hot and heavy as I had anticipated. We picked away at a few teal here and there, made the obligatory horrible shot and long bomb assist with Lou, but there really was no rush to leave and there were birds in the area.

What seems to be the case with every duck opener we have had since we moved up here, we heard the honks of low geese. Because of the wall of tall cattails behind us we could not see them. With each honk we knew they were going to be close when we did finally see them.

In a split second they were over the top of us. My first shot busted a wing as I fell backwards into the slough. As I hit the water, I made a finishing backwards-over-the-shoulder shot on my bird. As I righted myself and assessed the damages I could see Dad had dropped the other one in the fracas. It was head up and swimming away on the opposite side of the bay. With one swift follow-up swat before Lou got too far out, we had two giant Canadas on the water.

Absolute pure blind luck.

As I slogged my way out to the first bird I was hoping so bad Lou would get the gumption to grab it and bring it at least halfway back. We had been working with larger dummies at home, but she was still hesitant. She did grab the bird and turn, but let go immediately and decided to just swim in circles instead. We both made our way to the other bird, with stars forming in my eyes, the fat-man was slowing quickly. By the time I got back to shore with the birds I was sucking back the heartburn. Boy am I out of shape....

The best part about all of the excitement was I was no longer cold! We shared a couple good laughs, a few more birds in the bag before doing a headcount. We were only one bird away from our limit. I didn't expect to limit this day, but we stayed out long enough to pick away at them.

With a small group circling above, one came just a little too close for Dad's itchy trigger finger, and as I lowered my head waiting for another pass, BOOM! BOOM!

I watch as the hen mallard fades to the left and splashes down about 50 yards down the water line. I swat the bird as she was still head up, but it didn't matter. Lou was deadlocked on the bird from the get-go and she made a rather slow, labored retrieve to finish out our mud soaked waterfowl opener.