2nd field hunt

Well it wasn't a barn burner, but we had a good time. I got weed away from work long enough to shoot a couple geese and a mallard. I will say that it rained for a short time (I hate hunting in the rain) and right after it stopped the greenheads blazed in. That's all I'm going to say about that. The geese flew a little late cause of the fog and just acted hinky all day. We finally had a couple groups work OK and culled a couple out of the flocks. We should've each had our limit but we can't seem to shoot at differ geese.

Just a pic of part of the spread

Some of us (weed) got to sleep all day while the guide (me) kept a vigil watch. Ready to wake him with "get ready" at a moments notice.

Weed had to leave early "for a meeting".

I stayed til sunset and only saw a couple flocks of qwackers but didn't improve my body count.All in all we had a great hunt. Man are those field hunts alot of work, but the layout blinds are so very comfortable.

Maybe when I get a guide I can trust to stay awake, I'll try sleepin.

Naw it's kinda like drivin', so very tired behind the wheel and wide awake in the passenger's seat.

Oh well, until next week take care.

Things to be Thankful for: landowners that allow hunting. Thanks Tom

I hate hunting in the rain

That's right I said it, give me a bluebird day anyday.

That being said I had my first solo field hunt today. I found out last nite that the corn had been picked, and there were already geese in the field. So I hastily readied for a impromptu field shoot. I made it to the field 1 hour and a half early. I started putting out a spread and setting up my layout blind. As shooting time rolled around I was putting the finishing touches on my blind. Finally it was time to relax.........what the??? rain, man I hate hunting in the rain. So I was laying in a layout blind, in the rain, waiting for the arrival of some waterfowl.

8:00 am is what my watch said. I was going to give it another hour, and if I don't see any birds, I'm going to pack it in. I hate hunting in the rain.

8:22 am- goose limit filled, now I'm only shooting ducks. I had the first flock of geese come in and 3 shots later I had my 2 geese. So I figured what the heck I'm already wet, and I can take 4 qwackers. I had pairs filter in, from which I took my duck limit. The first 2 I took 1, the next 2 I dropped 2,the third pair I took a nice drake. There ya go limited out by 9:45.


I packed everything up and made it home by 10:30. Cleaned my birds, opened and hung everything up. This took until 3:00 pm, of course I had to rearrange the whole garage to get all my soaking wet gear propped up and open enough to dry. I'm hoping that it will all be dry by next week cause I might give 'er heck again.

Yep, I hate hunting in the rain....... but it's still better than workin'.

New Lake

I called weed up and asked if he wanted to go duck hunting today. When he asked where, I told him the name of the lake, followed by "it's my first time there". So not knowing what kinda birds to expect, if any, he agreed. We met up in the dark hours and went over to the lake and set up. I knew where we were going to set up from fishing it, so that wasn't the hard part. The hard part was paying attention watching for birds. It wasn't hot and heavy as they say, it was more like cold and light. We did have one group of mallards work in really well. Actually they worked in a little too well. We didn't see them until they were cupped and dropping in, we only had to wait seconds before the shot. Then when we "took 'em" I just slung steel, three misses. Weed on the other hand only had 2 misses he was able to make the last one count.

I told my wife this story and her response was "what's wrong with you?" I guess I've even been missing too many for her too.

Oh well, had a good time and the day was perfect, just a little warm.

Bonus hunt

Well Thursday I got out to my local lake and was able to redeem my prior days shooting. Before the missing started I was in great shape with a one shot one kill mallard. Then I reverted back to my missing ways on another mallard that was flying by. I think I'll say the tree limb was in my way, even if it wasn't I pruned it back a bit anyway. Got this hunt in before work so had to leave early, around noon.

For whatever reason grebe's love my spread and boat this year.





Yesterday I got an invite to shoot some geese off my buddy Weeds pond. So I got there in the wee hours, waited in town (in the car on main street) for Weed and Ron to wake up and roll in. After a phone call and 25 mins, headlights were in my rearview. So were off, we get to the property and spend some time figuring how to set up. Now the work starts, get all the gear across the fence and to the small hill. Set out the dekes, put out the blinds, get set and snooze. The fog was pretty thick in the morning and into the early afternoon. Had a flock come in early they landed and stayed on the other side of the pond, until they flew out. Then we had a couple smaller flocks cycle in and out. We took a couple birds here and there. The whole time Weed was making excuses why they weren't dropping in blindly. His favorite was "they see the blinds", we should get rid of the blinds. Anyway had a couple flocks work great except for the fact they kept comin' in over my left shoulder.

After we filled out,we picked up the gear, turned and burned back home, cleaned the birds and caught a nap before going to work.

I want to thank Weed again for the invite, and Ron for bringing the dekes. I was there for the luck of it (I saw the birds) and just kept a general watch of the area. This was the maiden voyage for my layout blind and it was pretty cool. I think I still like boat hunting better, but you can definately whack em' in layouts. It's also more comfortable to sleep in a layout....... isn't it Ron.






Taught our retriever to wave.

And watch for geese

And make decoys








Ron and Weed
End result: 6 geese and a bonus mallard. Thanks guys

Same result

I went out duck hunting yesterday saw some ducks, even had some good shots. However like the title says.......
I could've gotten up, went outside beat my head on a tree 4 or 5 x's, came back inside grabbed 20 bucks off the counter, flushed it down the crapper and gone back to bed. That's how productive I was, not only with my shooting. Which was deplorable, but the wind didn't help at all either. It was supposed to come out of the NW all day, so I went to my NW spot and low and behold it was out of the W,SW all morning. Somewhere around noon it switched to WNW so I had to move my spread 3 x's. Trying to make the best out of the wind direction. Man what a pain in the axx. Anyway I didn't even shoot well enough to loose a feather on a duck. I would shoot, then lower and shake my head in shame. That's all I could do, it was terrible.
I'm home now because the weather was spose to be rainy all day. Again I must say I wish I had become a meteorologist. It's the only gig you can be wrong at every single day and still keep your job. Yep you guessed it it's partly sunny with no rain. So here I sit updating my blog instead of hunting. Yeah, yeah, I know I should've gone no matter what, point taken I'm not taking any chances next time. I'm just going to go and if the weather turns bad, so be it.
I got some video of some goosers that kept me company. The first couple actually swam in from....I'm not sure. I only saw them when they got within 40 yrds. Anyway the larger of the two was double cluckin' as they swam in. When they got to within 30 yrds of the decoys they flew right at them, and actually chested one of my decoys. I had never seen that before, unfortunately I didn't get the video rolling until after, but they're still pretty cool. The single came in and stayed for 1 decoy move, geese and all. He finally left after hangin' out by the dekes for over an hour, after a small flock flew by and asked him to join them.

Goose season opens on Sat, if anything will salvage a bad duck hunt it's a flock of geese workin' in.