The bliss of a fruitful duck hunt
The flock of a couple dozen divers appeared out of the dark sky fifteen minutes after shooting hours. They came in quartering to us, dropping down and turned right to left, fifteen yards outside of the right spread of decoys moving toward the left spread. Clyde shot first, I shot second, but nothing fell and the birds banked straight away gaining altitude fast.
I started to follow the bird I shot at, but out of the corner of my eye saw a bird falling from high above and just watched all the way to the water. I didn’t kill the duck, but I enjoy watching them splash. Clyde just made a wonderful shot at what in the early morning light looked like bluebills. This all took place in about five seconds.
In the dark at the landing just before 5 a.m., I talked to another hunter. He scouted the evening prior in the rain and told me that he didn’t see a lot of ducks. The Sunday prior he had the best duck hunt of his life at the same spot. We hunted there the day before that and bagged a couple redheads, but went grouse hunting that Sunday. This didn’t surprise me, I hear it a lot.
The northern zone duck season ended yesterday in the midst of gun deer season. I have hunted ducks during the gun deer season. But not this year; most years the duck season ends in most of the north, prior to gun season due to freeze up.
We retrieved that duck and, oh how I missed Sienna. This retrieve would have been an easy one for her. For us it meant breaking down the blind, pushing the boat out of the spread of decoys, and motoring to it as it floated away from us. This happened several times that morning. When we picked it out of the water we found a ring neck, which look a lot like bluebills in the air. Our two best opportunities happened with four divers flying left to right over the decoys and only five yards off the water when we were watching a flock from the other direction. We never got the guns up. The next best opportunity came when I watched a flock of a dozen approaching from behind and told Clyde not to move. Those birds were 50 yards out when a larger flock flared off the front of the boat over the left spread of decoys. Clyde had hunkered down waiting for my call when this happened. I didn’t have a shot since I would have had to shoot over him. He never raised his gun before the wind carried the flaring birds out of range. We needed to get back in the game.
We tinkered around with a couple more flocks with Clyde bringing a couple birds out of each. He was shooting well. I kept mounting the shotgun poorly and my right bicep was taking a beating because of that. I find I miss 100% of the birds when I don’t mount the shotgun properly. My right arm made a mental note to slow down and mount the shotgun correctly.
About 8 a.m., Clyde pulled up on a flock crossing in front of him and missed only to have them circle around closer to us dropping one. Suddenly several flocks of bufflehead were on top of us. I dropped one on the left of Clyde, and then a second to his right. We had several drake bufflehead in full plumage dead in the water 20 yards outside of the decoys.
One doesn’t get a lot of opportunities at buffleheads. I haven’t taken the safety off on one in decades. That day these strikingly beautiful ducks were everywhere on the marsh and buzzing our decoys. What sounded like a slow day at the landing thankfully provided a duck hunt to remember.
I don’t recall how many times we broke the blind down and set it up or how many times we pushed the boat out to retrieve ducks. Oh, how I missed Sienna. She would have been in her duck dog glory.
We picked up and headed back to the landing, running into the hunter I talked to earlier. They got a few ducks and had a youth hunter with them that shot her first duck ever, a big iridescent headed triple curl drake mallard. November opened her treasure chest that morning.
Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!
Through a
Decoy’s
E
ye
