Joe Fladeland
10-05-2006, 04:33 PM
After my buddy and I teamed up with a group from Arkansas for a goose hunt(JE on the Goose Hunting Forum), we came home and cleaned the birds and then we headed out to some backwater off of the Missouri River for an evening duck hunt.
When we pull up to our spot we see another car there and our hearts sink. They are just getting out of their car and are getting all their gear ready. I get out and ask them very politely how they plan on hunting the backwater(decoys, pass shooting, jumping) because we planned on throwing out some dekes and seeing what we could bring in. The guy tells me they just plan on jumping them out of there and seeing how many they can get. They had a few ducks in the back of their car and my buddy asks them where they got those at. The guy replies something along the lines of, "We got those earlier this morning at some other water, they've been sitting there for quite a while now so we'll probably just throw them." After they said this I was getting pretty angry so I figured I better just let them go before something happens. So they go on their way and my buddy and I go off the other way. Right away they jump all of the ducks and they drop one. The ducks come directly at us and I get one out of that flock. Soon after that they head back to their car and drive off. We make our way to where those ducks were and throw out our spread of 2 hen Gadwalls, 4 RealImage Hen Mallards, 2 hen Wigeons and 4 Over-size Mallard Feeder Butts. Not very long after we throw out our dekes the birds start returning. Pairs of Wigeons and Gadwalls gave us our limit pretty easily. There was also one Greenhead that my buddy got. Towards sunset a huge flight of probably 200 gadwalls, wigeons and mallards filled the sky. It was a sight to behold. Ducks were everywhere. It reminded me of what it must be like in Arkansas in the flooded timber because we were surrounded by huge cottonwoods. It was a great time. 10 ducks in the bag.
The picture isn't to great because this was the one hunt I didn't bring my camera and we got back after sunset. I'm on the left and Nick is on the right.
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/1553/duckhuntmediumkv3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
When we pull up to our spot we see another car there and our hearts sink. They are just getting out of their car and are getting all their gear ready. I get out and ask them very politely how they plan on hunting the backwater(decoys, pass shooting, jumping) because we planned on throwing out some dekes and seeing what we could bring in. The guy tells me they just plan on jumping them out of there and seeing how many they can get. They had a few ducks in the back of their car and my buddy asks them where they got those at. The guy replies something along the lines of, "We got those earlier this morning at some other water, they've been sitting there for quite a while now so we'll probably just throw them." After they said this I was getting pretty angry so I figured I better just let them go before something happens. So they go on their way and my buddy and I go off the other way. Right away they jump all of the ducks and they drop one. The ducks come directly at us and I get one out of that flock. Soon after that they head back to their car and drive off. We make our way to where those ducks were and throw out our spread of 2 hen Gadwalls, 4 RealImage Hen Mallards, 2 hen Wigeons and 4 Over-size Mallard Feeder Butts. Not very long after we throw out our dekes the birds start returning. Pairs of Wigeons and Gadwalls gave us our limit pretty easily. There was also one Greenhead that my buddy got. Towards sunset a huge flight of probably 200 gadwalls, wigeons and mallards filled the sky. It was a sight to behold. Ducks were everywhere. It reminded me of what it must be like in Arkansas in the flooded timber because we were surrounded by huge cottonwoods. It was a great time. 10 ducks in the bag.
The picture isn't to great because this was the one hunt I didn't bring my camera and we got back after sunset. I'm on the left and Nick is on the right.
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/1553/duckhuntmediumkv3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)