After showing up Wednesday night about 8:30, we had a quick beer and began to set up shop. We did some catching up, made the morning plan and began to reload the boat and the truck. After a short night sleep we were up at 2:00am and on the way to the landing. We stopped for some doughnuts and to fill our thermoses with coffee and showed up at the landing at about 3:15. With no one there our plan for the day was still on schedule. The boat ride out was long because we were also towing a 10ft boat behind us, but great navigation skills by Matt led us right where we wanted to go.
We quickly set up our canopy tent to keep dry as long as possible. With plenty of time to spare we sat around drank coffee cut some grass for blinds, and the best part of all, fired up the cook stove for some breakfast. After setting up decoys and hiding the boats we had our blinds ready to go and all we needed was some ducks. We all made our goals for the weekend and the shooting began. At the start of the shoot we saw quite a few birds but they were flying really high. Out of frustration we took a few low percentage shots with little success, But soon we would be lucky. After hitting a few we had found our groove.
Right at lunch we had the shot of the day by my brother. We were all standing around determining if we should move or stay and eating sandwiches, when a fat black duck came right into the decoys. the only one with a gun was my brother, and after setting his food down he pulled up with a great 1 shot powder on this bird at 35 yds. A little while later we had a mallard zip in from behind, my uncle and I swung around to hit it and I dropped it but had to whack it again. As the dog had just made it back with the bird, we had a teal working. I took the bird and trew it down in the grass and worked the teal around. It came right in and on the retrieve when he brought the teal in and was" healing" up, I noticed something spectacular on the mallard. Jewlery! I had made one of my goals for the weekend. 2 Years ago it was a big bull pintail for my wall, and this year I wanted a band.
We stayed on the line for the rest of the day and even though we should have limited out, we didn't. We had a few missed shots but we had a great time. We had birds corkscrew down on us from way high but with other people shooting around us it was hard to work birds down from high up. The rain had let up for the entire shoot but started up again as we picked up and the day ended just as it started. First ones out in the rain and last ones in to the launch in the rain.
2 Drake Mallards, 2 Hen Wigeon, 1 Hen shoveler, 2 Hen Mallards, 1 Black Duck, 4 Hen Gadwalls, 1 Hen Canvasback, 2 Hen Ringbills, 1 Drake Ringbill.... and no Geese!
From: Ryan
Sent: Oct 22, 2009 7:47 PM
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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