Ducks and days to remember

I've been huntin' ducks for a long, long time and have piled up a few of 'em over the years, but I've never had two days of duck huntin' quite like the last few days.

Wade gave me a call a few days ago, wonderin' what I was doin' on Friday. Well, it'd been almost two years since I dropped the hammer on a quacker, so I figured it'd be in my best interest to go smack a few ducks with a good buddy. A plan was struck for Friday, but after a scoutin' mission on Wednesday evenin', he called me up and convinced me that Thursday was the day to be there.

Me 'n Tater with Thursday's harvest.

Thursday mornin', with the help of two other gentleman that showed up at the pond, we rather quickly and easily filled a four-man limit. With the ducks rainin' down at first light, it was damn near difficult to keep shells in the gun. We finally had to stop shootin' just so we could take stock of what we had. It was incredible... we were out in the middle of the pond fetchin' ducks and had piles of 'em swarmin' around, with a few even droppin' into the decoys briefly. After the feathers had finally settled, we had 19 ducks in the first half-hour of shootin' light. Cooler still, we had four different species of ducks, includin' mallards, shovelers, teal, and one other oddball hen that we couldn't readily identify. We had a few more scattered ducks show up over the course of the next few hours to help us get to our limit of 24 ducks.

Wade and I were back at it again on Friday mornin', and although we didn't have near the insanity we had at first light the day before, we had plenty of excitement and consistent shootin'.

A little back story here... over the summer, our buddy Matt had picked up a few gun raffle tickets for all of us, and a good day was had by all as we ate, drank and enjoyed doin' nothin' for most of the day. As luck would have it though, one of the tickets he'd picked up for me was the first one to hit, and I became the owner of somethin' that I'd have never bought for myself. Matt broke the cherry on her bustin' some clay birds while we were upstate, but I hadn't gotten around to chasin' any critters with it. That bein' the case, I decided that it needed a proper introduction to the huntin' world.

The first group of ducks that came in Friday mornin' was a group of four teal, and the very first shot outta the Citori dropped a beautiful drake green-winged teal in full plumage... an absolutely beautiful duck. Once we had all of 'em anchored, we discovered that all four of 'em were drakes. Talk about a special memory with a great friend.

Wade and I promptly decided that a trip to the taxidermist was in order for both of us, as one of the ones that he'd dropped was also in full plumage.



By the time I left about 10:30, we had 10 ducks in the bag, includin' another shoveler and a handful of mallards. Wade decided to stay for the day, as another friend of his was thinkin' about joinin' him in the afternoon. I still haven't talked to him to see how the rest of the day went for him, but he did send me a picture of a beautiful drake wood duck that didn't escape his Super Vinci. Given that we both consider the drake woodie to be one of the most beautiful birds in the world, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if his taxidermy bill doubled once he got that.

One thing that surprised me... we bagged five shovelers and saw at least twice that, but we never saw a drake. I didn't realize that they were that prevalent in our area, but what we saw the last few days certain goes against that train of though.

I am forever indebted to Wade for invitin' me along... it'll be real tough to top a pair of huntin' days like that.