Too much of a good thing......

**Ron Zega** · #1 12-19-2008, 06:18 PM

Date: December 13th, 2008

Location: New York

Sunrise/ Sunset: 7:24am / 4:20pm

Weather: Bitter Cold, light winds

Temperature: Low 6 F / High 16 F

Wind: 3-5 mph from the west

Equipment Used: GHG® FFD Lesser Actives, GHG® L/S Canada Floaters, GHG® Pro-Grade Over-size Canada Goose Shells, GHG® Over-Size Series™ Full Body Mallards, GHG® Life-Size Mallards, GHG® Life-Sized Pintails, GHG® Over-Size Black Ducks, GHG® Sleeper Black Ducks, GHG® No-Head Feeder Mallards, Avery® Floating Gun Case, Avery® 6 Slot Decoy Bags, Avery® Pro-grade Blind Bag, Avery® DIY Lanyard, Avery® Power Flag, Avery® Field Caps, Avery® Fleece Skull Caps.

Hunters: Arliss Reed, Robert Vellucci, Brandon Ferns, Brian Danish, Phil West and Avery® Pro-Staffer Ron Zega

Journal Notes:
There comes a point in every season, when you realize…. it might be over or over at least in your particular area. The cold weather we had experienced all week, the same cold weather that had made the hunting incredible the week before had finally finished it. Enough of the roosting area had been frozen over and the debilitating ice storm that hit during the week pushed most birds out of here, but not all of them.

We called another team meeting and formulated a plan for Saturday. Saturday morning came and things were put into motion, canoes were loaded with decoys, guns and blind bags, and we started our trek out there. No one had anticipated just how difficult it was going to be to get through 1 mile of slushy, iceberg strewn, cold water, but we made it and went to work, breaking out a hole in the ice and setting decoys in a protected bay near where the birds had been located. With the temperature somewhere in the single digits, you could almost watch the water re-freezing around the decoy you had just placed in the water not more than a minute ago.

The morning was off to a very slow start with not so much as a shot until after 9 am, but we made the most of our opportunities, tried to keep the water around the decoys open and ended up shooting close to a dozen ducks. For the amount of birds we saw that day though, everyone was in agreement that we did pretty well, given the circumstances. By the time 2:30 pm rolled around, the group consensus was that it would be a lot easier getting out of there before it got dark, so we chipped the decoys out of the ice, bagged them up, and paddled our way back to the trucks.

L-R: Ron Zega, Brandon Ferns, Phil West, Brian Danish, Arliss Reed, Rob Vellucci