Sunday, October 4, 2009

A Far Cry From Yesterday

In past years the second day has yielded more birds than the first. After all the birds we saw on Saturday, but didn't necessarily get to shoot at, we went back to the same spot thinking that a sunrise shoot would be great.
On the lake behind us they started shooting 5 minutes early and once again you could tell that many were not hitting much. Two groups were so close together that you could almost count 4 seconds between when the birds would fly past one than the other. We listened as one guy chased a cripple around the marsh.
As for us we didn't see a flock, or any birds, for about 20 minutes than a small flock riding the water line popped out. I pulled up to shoot hitting one on the first shot but tried to hit it again with the second as it sailed out. We watched it hit the water and immediately dive never to return to the surface. Nothing worse than having to tell the dog "no bird buddy". About 20 minutes after that we had another flock of wood ducks get up and fly by but they turned out of range for me. My dad got off 2 good shots folding up one nice drake. Then the thing I hate worse than sky busters showed up. A fisherman. With the whole lake available, he choose to fish 100yrds outside our decoys. After not seeing many birds, almost none at all, we decided to call it a day before 10am.
Hopefully next weekend we hit on a good spot. Sounds like wigeons and gadwals are on the move in the area. Had a buddy get a few in Mora today along with a greenie, teal and a hooded. It is hard to do some good scouting with 2 kids under the age of 2, but I'm sure we'll eventually find the "X". I just hope sooner than later.

2 comments:

matt13 said...

Here's my report form pool 7 of the Mississippi. Plenty of birds down here. Everyone got shooting, but nobody did spectacular. Sat.'s venture started at 4am. made stops at our first 3 choices on the prairie, and all were already occupied. Not like us to not get our spot, but we went to plan D and ended up on the "Strip". (was not exactly the "landing strip"). Had our share of misses and missed opportunities, but ended the day with 8 mixed bag. Big highlight of the day was seeing the look on a 12yr olds face when he realized the hen he just shot had "jewelry". Tried our usual 2nd day spot by the dike, and had about 5 min's of shooting, and then it got pretty quite. 2 greenheads and a teal was as good as it was going to get this morning, except for the seven geese that I worked, took two passes on the dekes, with the third pass in easy range directly overhead, and not a single one fell. I'm not sure if we picked up right after that from lack of action or embarrasment.

BTW– was the fisherman having any luck?

I need to come up with a clever nickname. I'll work on that this week.

DUCK JUNKIE said...

No. It was one of those back and forth types pretending like they were trying real hard. When we picked up they of course moved. Wanted to find them on the way back to the landing but they were no where in sight.