This is an LSS style report, very verbose. If you don't like that just skip down to the pics.
Since I'm toting the 11 year old, Seth, I decided to bug out last night to be sure we have a good spot to hunt without a long walk. I don't mind the walk, but little dude in his Mom's waders has a tough time in the mud. Got to the property around 12:30 AM and promptly attempted to sleep in the truck. The wind was howling like crazy, shaking the truck and making noise in the trees. I slept in 5 minute intervals until about 2:30 when another truck pulled up behind me and from then on out I might have dosed off a few times if I'm lucky. 4:00 rolled around so I fired up the truck and drove in, picked a good spot with a short walk, parked the truck, and made another attempt at sleep. That lasted about 20 minutes, too excited to wait for the alarm clock to go off at 5:00. Woke up Seth and explained to him that we're not at home anymore and that it's time to go hunting, took me about three tries with him looking at me like I'm crazy.
Suited up and packed up and walked on out with some other guys who were going past us. Man their little dog was FAST, she'd run up 100 yards and come flying back. I was able to keep my dog verbally restrained though she wanted to go play.
Got to our spot and started pitching out the dekes in no particular order. The wind was heavy, probably 25 mph, so I tried to leave them a nice middle area to land in that was very close to where we'd sit at so Seth could kill with his little 20 guage. Finished up the dekes and got seated just as the sun began to appear on the horizon. We sat for about 30 seconds and heard a bunch of splashing, already had some ducks sitting in the dekes waiting to get shot, but legal shooting time wasn't for another 15 minutes so we just watched them swim all over the place. About 6 minutes until shooting time the neighbors open fire, way too dark to ID birds and they had no business shooting yet but oh well. Here come another 3 flocks of something landing in the decoys. We wait another few minutes and everybody around was shooting so I say what the hay and turn Seth loose on the first bird of the day, but had to jump up and wave my hands and scream at them to get them to fly. Seth drops a nice little Gadwall hen like a rock and we sit back down.
All the shooting really had the birds moving, we had a lot of flocks come buzzing through to check out the dekes only to pull up and keep moving at jumbo jet speeds. It was becoming apparent that my decoy spread was not properly laid out. The birds wanted to be in calm water and I had small groups of dekes sitting in the rough stuff and the wind had shifted so they no longer had a nice landing area between two pods but would have to shoot over a pod and land in front of another.
I backed off to check out the spread from a distance and it looked pitiful, but we were getting enough birds coming through so I decided to just leave it be. As you can see I don't put out many birds in these marshes. I find better results with smaller spreads, sometimes even putting out 5 or 6 dekes. The Spread from a distance:
By the time I got back to our seats we'd already missed another 3 or 4 flocks of birds and Seth was not too happy. He said, "Dad you're messing around with pictures we're miss..... DUCKS!!" That didn't last long, here come a flock of 10 or so Gadwall and we drop 3 out of them including this nice mature drake:
Poor dog hates getting triples and it worn out by the time she's done (she's ten years old and fat). This one didn't help the matter much eather, she was growling all the way back and I noticed it was latched on to her ear and then biting her neck. Notice the grimmace on her face. :lol:
She finally gets done with our triple and she's trying to catch her breath and we hear shooting out on the bay. This usually means there's some flocks coming in and sure enough about a dozen Widgeon show up. I called and called and called at these picky suckers and they finally took about a 200 yard turn and came in, one shot from each of us and two Widgeon floating in the dekes and the poor dog has to go back out for a double.
After that things slowed down a bit and I let Seth swat a single and we finished out our limit with one last double. The final count was 8 Gadwall and 2 Widgeon and we were packing up before 8:00 AM. Please pardon the missing heads, I've never been good at dispatching ducks properly.
He got a little talking to for ruining my daily bag shot with the stupid hand signs that I didn't notice on the little LCD screen of the digital camera, the dog never does **** like that. :roll:
Seth got the big bird of the day, that big mature Gadwall drake from our triple. No, the gun is not pointed at him, he's well in front of it.
Such a look of experience from an 11 year old duck buster. No, the gun is not pointed at him, he's well in front of it.
Got all the pics done and now it's time to do the chores.
Since I'm toting the 11 year old, Seth, I decided to bug out last night to be sure we have a good spot to hunt without a long walk. I don't mind the walk, but little dude in his Mom's waders has a tough time in the mud. Got to the property around 12:30 AM and promptly attempted to sleep in the truck. The wind was howling like crazy, shaking the truck and making noise in the trees. I slept in 5 minute intervals until about 2:30 when another truck pulled up behind me and from then on out I might have dosed off a few times if I'm lucky. 4:00 rolled around so I fired up the truck and drove in, picked a good spot with a short walk, parked the truck, and made another attempt at sleep. That lasted about 20 minutes, too excited to wait for the alarm clock to go off at 5:00. Woke up Seth and explained to him that we're not at home anymore and that it's time to go hunting, took me about three tries with him looking at me like I'm crazy.
Suited up and packed up and walked on out with some other guys who were going past us. Man their little dog was FAST, she'd run up 100 yards and come flying back. I was able to keep my dog verbally restrained though she wanted to go play.
Got to our spot and started pitching out the dekes in no particular order. The wind was heavy, probably 25 mph, so I tried to leave them a nice middle area to land in that was very close to where we'd sit at so Seth could kill with his little 20 guage. Finished up the dekes and got seated just as the sun began to appear on the horizon. We sat for about 30 seconds and heard a bunch of splashing, already had some ducks sitting in the dekes waiting to get shot, but legal shooting time wasn't for another 15 minutes so we just watched them swim all over the place. About 6 minutes until shooting time the neighbors open fire, way too dark to ID birds and they had no business shooting yet but oh well. Here come another 3 flocks of something landing in the decoys. We wait another few minutes and everybody around was shooting so I say what the hay and turn Seth loose on the first bird of the day, but had to jump up and wave my hands and scream at them to get them to fly. Seth drops a nice little Gadwall hen like a rock and we sit back down.
All the shooting really had the birds moving, we had a lot of flocks come buzzing through to check out the dekes only to pull up and keep moving at jumbo jet speeds. It was becoming apparent that my decoy spread was not properly laid out. The birds wanted to be in calm water and I had small groups of dekes sitting in the rough stuff and the wind had shifted so they no longer had a nice landing area between two pods but would have to shoot over a pod and land in front of another.
I backed off to check out the spread from a distance and it looked pitiful, but we were getting enough birds coming through so I decided to just leave it be. As you can see I don't put out many birds in these marshes. I find better results with smaller spreads, sometimes even putting out 5 or 6 dekes. The Spread from a distance:
By the time I got back to our seats we'd already missed another 3 or 4 flocks of birds and Seth was not too happy. He said, "Dad you're messing around with pictures we're miss..... DUCKS!!" That didn't last long, here come a flock of 10 or so Gadwall and we drop 3 out of them including this nice mature drake:
Poor dog hates getting triples and it worn out by the time she's done (she's ten years old and fat). This one didn't help the matter much eather, she was growling all the way back and I noticed it was latched on to her ear and then biting her neck. Notice the grimmace on her face. :lol:
She finally gets done with our triple and she's trying to catch her breath and we hear shooting out on the bay. This usually means there's some flocks coming in and sure enough about a dozen Widgeon show up. I called and called and called at these picky suckers and they finally took about a 200 yard turn and came in, one shot from each of us and two Widgeon floating in the dekes and the poor dog has to go back out for a double.
After that things slowed down a bit and I let Seth swat a single and we finished out our limit with one last double. The final count was 8 Gadwall and 2 Widgeon and we were packing up before 8:00 AM. Please pardon the missing heads, I've never been good at dispatching ducks properly.
He got a little talking to for ruining my daily bag shot with the stupid hand signs that I didn't notice on the little LCD screen of the digital camera, the dog never does **** like that. :roll:
Seth got the big bird of the day, that big mature Gadwall drake from our triple. No, the gun is not pointed at him, he's well in front of it.
Such a look of experience from an 11 year old duck buster. No, the gun is not pointed at him, he's well in front of it.
Got all the pics done and now it's time to do the chores.