No. #1: A good duck hunting friend from Gainesville drove up this week and I took him to a favorite pond. So far his Gainesville area duck hunts have been less than stellar despite good effort on his part. At the pond our morning got off to a pretty slow start with few birds flying. Paddling out to pick up a duck we decided to pick up the dekes and go to where the ducks were showing a preference for. Less than 10 minutes after we moved & redeployed our dekes we had a second duck down and after that we had a somewhat consistent late flight of singles, pairs, and threesomes decoying into the dekes. It was a fun hunt with a good friend. Reaffirms that you have to be adaptable out there. If we hadn’t of picked up & relocated our hunt would have been just about a bust.
My half of the ducks
Drakes
No. 2: Thursday evening, I hoped on my bike about ten minutes before sunset to check out a pond I had not hunted before. After climbing a tree and scoping out the scene I saw lots of coots, hooded mergansers, but only a few ducks; four to be exact. I rode back out in the dark and despite what I saw I was still thinking about hunting it the next day. The next morning I hit the pond and nothing happened until about 20 minutes after shooting time. Then hoodies began to land and even swim into the dekes. It was fun to watch but I learned I need to get better identifying mergansers on the wing. With an allowable limit of 5, which only two can be hoodies, I didn’t shoot any more after taking a drake and hen hooded. They were fun to watch but not what I was hoping for. Scratch one pond. No duks came in at all.
Nice little pond
Hooded mergs
No. 3: The next hunt was with a friend who I’d just met a few weeks ago. A week prior, I took him to a favorite pond and we had done really well. Today we were swapping Duk hunts. The morning started off grey with a light rain and a slight fog rolling in. As expected, things were slow and we saw only a total of seven big ducks but we did have some ruddy’s take a liking to our dekes. That was our only action for the morning as things were slow. With a quick volley we managed four and the others landed a short distance off teasing us. Very slow morning but good to be out with a buddy.
Really Duky morning
Wet ruddy’s on the bow
A very short flurry
No. 4: Yesterday morning I took my neighbor Kevin and my 10 year old son, Casey to a pond that I knew had hooded mergansers. I was pretty realistic that the ducks would likely be nil and that this was likely gonna be a merg shoot exclusively but none the less it would be a good experience for Casey. The goal for the morning was to add another wing shooting opportunity for my son. This would be my first hunt with Kevin and a first hunt for Casey using waders instead of a boat.
Unexpectedly, we had three teal come in right at legal shooting time and drop in the dekes. Casey got a shot off but no duck down. Ten minutes later Casey had another opportunity when two rudy’s came through but again no duck down. By this time Casey is starting to shiver in his waders and I realized that I had underdressed him. His jacket was packed but too far away to quickly get. Dang! He had gotten his shirt sleeves wet and it was starting to spit rain a bit. He said he could hold out a little longer and we stuck it out. While he was visibly shivering we had a pair of hoodies fly over the dekes and he got off a shot. We then had a single hoodie in the dekes but she too made it out of the dekes unscathed.
With that we unloaded his 870 and he & Kevin hiked back towards the truck. I started striking dekes and had two opportunities myself on hoodies coming into the dekes but I didn’t even connect. My shotgun doesn’t have a sling so I started using a friction sling that slips over the barrel & stock. That’s enough to throw off my shooting obviously so we need to square away our shotguns with better slings. It was a FUN morning out with the boys and it was another good field experience for Casey.
Casey at bat
Kevin pretty well hidden
Father & son
End of the morning for us (Casey had just taken his gloves off)
Hoo Yah!!
Brian
