Weekend waterfowlin'

I was hellish busy this past weekend, and I hate to go deer huntin' if I don't have time to cut one up. That said, I did have a little bit of free time, and it takes far less time to cut up ducks and geese than it does deer, so I did make time to chase some feathered creatures.

Friday mornin', I had Wade come up for what we hoped would be a good duck shoot. The creek behind the farm I work at is always littered with wood ducks durin' the early part of October, so we hoped we would still catch them there before they left the area.

Well, we certainly weren't disappointed. It's impossible to describe how fast them woodies can fly, and when you're set up on a creek, there's no warnin' whatsoever when they might show up. Regardless, we managed to catch up to a few of 'em, and we had a right pleasant mornin' on the stream.

Perhaps the best part of shootin' ducks is gettin' to make a meal outta 'em, which I did on Tuesday night. Most species of ducks make great tablefare, but it's hard to beat the taste of fresh wood duck.

While we were huntin' ducks on Friday, we noted the amount of geese that seemed to be usin' the area. I got on the horn with Dad, and we set up a hunt for Monday mornin'. Joe decided he was taggin' along, and it's never a bad thing to have an extra gun along for a goose shoot.

It sure as hell wasn't very good goosin' weather, and the cover was pretty sparse where we needed to be, but we saw a lot of birds and managed to sit a few in the decoys. I gotta say, I was pretty embarrassed with my shootin', but I think I accounted for at least one of the six that we wound up with. Certainly wasn't a good shootin' day for any of us, but we were happy with the hunt anyway.