Happy Happy Happy Thanksgiving

I, along with everyone that reads this, has so much to be thankful for there's really not enough room here to list it all. That being said, here's the short list:Wife,Health,Family,House and Time-Off work to enjoy the great outdoors.
These are just some of the things I am thankful for.
Tuesday I was able to hit the water for some duck hunting, and pulled down a lone drake and then a double. Making my take three for the day.

Let me see here what did I do on Wednesday...... oh yeah I went duck hunting. I got to one of my favorite spots and low and behold there was hard water in the spot I wanted to hunt. So I had to set up in an area that was a little more conducive to putting out decoys. Let me tell you I am very happy I did, I hunted til 2pm and almost got a limit of mallards.

 Did you see it?       See what???         Look again              I'll wait...... Give up????

Yep I finally got a banded duck. He was number 29 for the year. He was banded in Heckla, South Dakota in 2010 and was at least 1 year old when he was banded.
That's what the banding certificate said.

Thursday I thought the competition for space on the water would be a factor so I went to a spot on a river that I have given access to by the landowner. I had a pretty good day, I saw 15 Turkeys roosting in the trees above the river. When the sun came out they flew down in a nearby field. I also saw a mink on the opposite shore, I really thought about shooting him. The last one I brought in got me 15.00 bucks, but since it was such a nice day I let him live.
I also had this deer cross the river just down from me. She was a yearling that got within 10 yards of me before heading up the embankment and disappearing.

 I got one mallard with the one and only shot I had all day. I left at 10am to get home and start the Thanksgiving day meal.

 Friday I showed up at the landing an hour and a half early, only to find all the water had turned hard. My duck boat will not break through any ice what so ever at all, so I raced back home dumped the boat grabbed a couple six packs of decoys and headed back to the river. I had a wood duck come in and land in my decoys with only minutes to go before shooting time. Once shooting time rolled around the wood duck rolled out without so much as a salute. The next duck I had a shot at I only winged and chased 4 blocks downstream only to get back exhausted and duck less. Right around noon, I finally put some meat on the ground and by that I mean I had to chase him down. I finally found him huddled up under an uprooted tree.

So as you can see I had many things to be grateful for.

Gettin' tougher

Tuesday I waited all day for some ducks, finally I had a triple rocketing in. I knocked a drake down with the first shot, the second was a miss, and dropped a hen with the 3rd. When the hen hit the water the drake got up and flew away.... smart, wait 'til I'm out of shells then show your alive. That's impressive.

Wednesday I made an hour drive to a lake I really enjoy going to. When I got to my spot I must have pushed out 45 mallards in the dark. Since I really didn't see any ducks during the day, I thought I would stay 'til dark and try for the mallards I pushed out. Well around 3 pm (which is when my wife usually gets home), I tried to call to let her know my plans.
No reception, so I quickly gathered my stuff and raced in so I could get somewhere to give her a call before she started to worry. I am usually home by 2 or 3 when I go duck hunting. Well I finally got reception around 4 pm and let her know what was going on. She was not only not worried but figured, given the time, that I was going to stay 'til dark. She said she would've waited until  2 hours past dark to send out a search party.
I'm still unsure if I should've been happy or sad with the outcome. On one hand I wasn't home at the time I usually come home, and she wasn't worried. On the other hand she knew me well enough not to worry if I was a couple hours late. Hmmmmmmm ????

I did get a mallard, that in my haste to get home didn't even get a pic of, until I got home.

Thursday it rained all day and I only had one mallard work. He dropped in 50yards from the outskirts of my spread, not to come any closer.

Deploy the Chernobyl spread

That's right, with goose season on hiatus I had to do something to get some draw power in my spread. So I got a half dozen Flambeau super mags.
I'll just show the pics.

no big difference right?

The goose decoy is a Flambeau that is 26" long.

 

 

 

 Ducks that size QWACK.

When I ordered them I thought they might be too big. I put them out and the ducks seemed to like them.
Four mallard limit

Tues.

Two Mallards and a Hooded Merganser

Wed.

Thursday I went out and got 1 hen wood duck, that almost landed in the Chernobyl decoys. The pic turned out really bad for some reason.
I'll try to do better.

Still no geese

I hunted on Tues. Wed. and Thur. of last week and brought home 1 hen mallard, 1 drake mallard and 3 wood ducks respectively. The last hunt was definitely the best. Here's the first 2 pics.

The sad thing about the drake was it had rice breast pretty bad. He was a beautiful duck but I didn't even clean him, I opened his chest and into the trash he went.

Now like I said the last hunt was the best one, I got permission to shoot a pond that had 60-70 wood ducks on it every night. So I watched it Tues and Wed, and there were easily that many birds showing up on a nightly basis, so I called a buddy of mine and we made plans to shoot it before the weather pushed the birds out. Thursday was the day, Jay showed up at my house at 3:45 with his kids, we all piled into my truck and off we went. Once there it took us a couple minutes to figure out where we were going to set up. Once we figured that out, it seemed as if on cue, that the woodies started diving bombing the pond. After an hour and a half, and a box and a half of shells later we had 6 woodies on the water. I got into the boat and played retriever while Jay policed up the area. That was one of the best shoots I have had in a long time. Those woodies were in and out in a matter of seconds, I've never seen wood ducks move so fast.
It was awesome.

I got some video of the hunt but haven't put it together yet, when I get it together I'll put it up here.