When Things Come Together in the Duck Factory Chaos Ensues

When things happen at the right time!!

I stay up at nights thinking about the coming weekend’s hunt. My racing mind won’t let me sleep. The images of ducks buckling in from the stratosphere are too much for me to take. I always tell people I’m ‘living the dream’ when they ask how things are. That’s a lie, cause if I were living the dream, I wouldn’t be sitting here typing on my computer, I would be A. on my way to shoot ducks, B. shooting ducks, or C. on my way back from shooting ducks. O.K. add in D. get a good Perch bite sprinkled in.

I mean, seriously, how is one suppose to concentrate with pictures like this fresh in the album.

This past weekend, things just came together, and they shouldn’t have. With the conditions, we should have had a frustrating weekend of watching ducks not leave the water, when in reality we were inundated, bum rushed. We had so many mallards on us that pinpointing our ‘other’ ducks became an exercise in futility, almost!

I never thought I would find myself complaining about ‘nothing but Mallards’, but both Saturday and Sunday saw us fully limited on the almighty Mallard and waiting and watching for a pintail or wigeon or gadwall. It was a GREAT problem to have. The most successful weekend of the year so far still should not have happened.

Starting Mid-Week, we were right on the FULL MOON cycle, and let me tell ya, Saturday nights moon was FULL, it was huge. Normally for us, the full moon means late night feeding by the fowl and a meager morning flight come the next morning. The Fowl gods must have been smiling because the duck and goose flight we witnessed both mornings was far from meager.

Saturday started out looking to be a typical Full Moon morning, the birds were staying on the water and we were trying to scratch out ones and twos. Then about 8:30, someone hit a switch and the flight was on. The day came to a close with a Pintail pair, hard on the deck, shot in unison by yours truly and my hunting partner Troy with simultaneous rounds. What a day!

Sunday had us headed to our other Jammin’ bean field adjacent to unharvested corn with a perfect wind forecast. My adrenaline and expectations were high and I could hardly contain my excitement as I was bartending Saturday night, until I left work and witnessed the Giant Moon as I was driving out of the Resort. I fretfully realized our perfect situation could be unraveling on us, those ducks could have been feeding at the very moment I was starting my truck.

That is the danger of the full moon cycle, late night feeding ducks with full bellies have no reason to fly to the field in the morning. Thankfully, the 10-20 mph wind must have jostled the water enough to make it uncomfortable as Sunday’s flight made Saturday’s look paltry. Our 47 bird morning was capitalized by the fantastic field work of the dog we had with, ‘Sophie”. Her and I both went home tired, but very happy and thankful.

What a weekend!!

Last weeks Waterfowl Report had me reminiscing a little bit and I ran across a newspaper article and a pair of decoys that I wanted to share. The article is just a picture, but it is one that hits home, both my grandfather and father with a load of geese and a Vikings football player to boot. The decoys remind me of how far we have come and how simple our sport used to be.