TheCoachZed
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
My brother-in-law called my up yesterday and said he wanted to go hunting at the crack of dawn.
"Easy for him," I thought. "He doesn't have to work 'til 11, then drive home, clean his house for impending family visits, load up all the hunting gear into the truck, and get up early enough to drive to the marsh before sun-up."
But of course I said yes. I was up at 4:45 a.m. At 6:45, we were in my Tracker navigating our way down a rutted and basically impassable trail into a "large local marsh." At 6:50 we were getting the truck unstuck from being hung up on a boulder. At 6:55 we were in our parking spot hearing all the geese we had hoped to shoot getting spooked and flying off before first light. At 7:20 we were smashing #2 steel into the only waterfowl interested in our decoys, three wood ducks. At 7:21 we were watching two of the three miraculously fly away after taking on enough steel that we probably could have harvested them with a magnet . . .
And so it went. After realizing the geese weren't coming back, we went looking for them, and ended up finding them on the wrong side of a very large river - and us without a boat. We scared up a tonne of black ducks but didn't get any shots off, then found a very prime shooting spot in a pond that yielded a bufflehead and what looked like a bluebill. We returned to the decoys to find a decent flock of black ducks hiding in the middle, which we promptly unloaded on (missing them all).
This appeared to be a continuing trend. We split up and went walking up opposite directions of the river. I ended up seeing a woodie hiding in an inlet, crawled on my belly through the marsh for a hundred feet, and hammered her as soon as she took off. Then, off in the distance, I saw more black ducks. I crawled on hands, knees, and then my belly across the tidal marsh until I could see the tops of their heads about 30 feet away. Aha, I thought! An easy shot! Should I just nail them now, or creep up a few feet closer to ensure a ridiculously easy shot?
After crawling a few more feet, the blacks spooked. No probalo, I said, they're still close enough to kill handily. Wrong! Point-blank shots left me with an empty gun, no ducks, and every other black duck in the marsh now taking off.
In a general state of disgust, I went back to the blind, only to realize half-way that the wood duck I'd crawled up on earlier had fallen out of my bag. Now I had nothing to show for this trip. I went back to find it and couldn't locate it, but spotted three more woodies in a creek, sneaked up on them again, and promptly missed them all.
In a foul (fowl?) mood I loaded up the decoys, headed up the trail and almost flipped the Tracker again in the ruts.
But it was still a pretty awesome day!
I think I should go back to #4 steel, though.
"Easy for him," I thought. "He doesn't have to work 'til 11, then drive home, clean his house for impending family visits, load up all the hunting gear into the truck, and get up early enough to drive to the marsh before sun-up."
But of course I said yes. I was up at 4:45 a.m. At 6:45, we were in my Tracker navigating our way down a rutted and basically impassable trail into a "large local marsh." At 6:50 we were getting the truck unstuck from being hung up on a boulder. At 6:55 we were in our parking spot hearing all the geese we had hoped to shoot getting spooked and flying off before first light. At 7:20 we were smashing #2 steel into the only waterfowl interested in our decoys, three wood ducks. At 7:21 we were watching two of the three miraculously fly away after taking on enough steel that we probably could have harvested them with a magnet . . .
And so it went. After realizing the geese weren't coming back, we went looking for them, and ended up finding them on the wrong side of a very large river - and us without a boat. We scared up a tonne of black ducks but didn't get any shots off, then found a very prime shooting spot in a pond that yielded a bufflehead and what looked like a bluebill. We returned to the decoys to find a decent flock of black ducks hiding in the middle, which we promptly unloaded on (missing them all).
This appeared to be a continuing trend. We split up and went walking up opposite directions of the river. I ended up seeing a woodie hiding in an inlet, crawled on my belly through the marsh for a hundred feet, and hammered her as soon as she took off. Then, off in the distance, I saw more black ducks. I crawled on hands, knees, and then my belly across the tidal marsh until I could see the tops of their heads about 30 feet away. Aha, I thought! An easy shot! Should I just nail them now, or creep up a few feet closer to ensure a ridiculously easy shot?
After crawling a few more feet, the blacks spooked. No probalo, I said, they're still close enough to kill handily. Wrong! Point-blank shots left me with an empty gun, no ducks, and every other black duck in the marsh now taking off.
In a general state of disgust, I went back to the blind, only to realize half-way that the wood duck I'd crawled up on earlier had fallen out of my bag. Now I had nothing to show for this trip. I went back to find it and couldn't locate it, but spotted three more woodies in a creek, sneaked up on them again, and promptly missed them all.
In a foul (fowl?) mood I loaded up the decoys, headed up the trail and almost flipped the Tracker again in the ruts.
But it was still a pretty awesome day!
I think I should go back to #4 steel, though.
