Sadness
The season ended Saturday with yet another skunk. Only five hen ringers for the year. Bummer.
ofs
Labels: duck hunting 23-24
Tu tene eum procul; Ego curram ob auxilium!
The season ended Saturday with yet another skunk. Only five hen ringers for the year. Bummer.
ofs
Labels: duck hunting 23-24
This year is following the trajectory of the last few. And, that is downward. Habitat is decreasing and so are the ducks. Three hunts and only three ducks. The only thing we’ve had a lot of is rain.
If I had a boat and a vehicle to pull it, I’d hunt my old haunts. But, I’ve got neither.
ofs
Labels: duck hunting 23-24
This nope rope was killed at the WMA I hunt.
Yipes Yipes Yipes
Here’s hoping that I may be too fat to be tempting.
ofs
Labels: duck hunting 23-24
LENTEN SONG
(to the tune of My Favorite Things)
Sackcloth and ashes, and days without eating,
Mortification and wailing and weeping,
A hair shirt that scratches, a nettle that stings,
These are a few of my favorite things.
Penitence, flagellants, memento mori,
Spending nights sleeping on rocks in a quarry,
The sound of a cloak'd solemn cantor who sings,
These are still more of my favorite things.
Tossing and turning and yearning I'm spurning,
Passions aflame like an ember-day burning,
Corpus and carnis and wild drunken flings,
Forsaken are they for my favorite things!
When it's Christmas,
When the tree's lit,
When the cards are sent,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I can't wa-a-a-a-it till Lent.
The ducks were back in East Marsh, but few and scattered. We had a few shots and ended with one hen ringer.
Finished the season with 18 ducks total. A poor year but so much better than last year’s 5.
ofs
Labels: duck hunting 22-23
I started the day asking Mike if he was as discouraged as I was. He agreed.
So many things have conspired to make this a bad year. Although it’s marginally better than last year.
Lots of kayakers at the ramp, but all waited until the official entry time to the WMA. A time that doesn’t leave any to set up, get hid, and cool down before shooting time.
When we finally could set out, the fog had rolled in thick. We had to paddle by feel. We knew the weak wind was from the south and used the sense of that on our faces to orient our paddling.
We eventually got to our island. People were already shooting while we were putting our decoys out. The reason they were shooting was not just that it was legal light, but the ducks were flying. We had birds landing in the dekes while we were still in the middle of them throwing out more.
We rushed back to blind up, it was hard to get wedged in and really hard to get palmettos up. It didn’t seem to matter. We were where they wanted to be.
We were done in less than an hour. No cripples. All ringers. Two limits.
ofs
Labels: duck hunting 22-23
Sudden deep water is still terrifying. A huge floating island/mud tusset got pushed into the kayak launch area. I almost got out of the boat to drag it over the mud. Fortunately, I checked the depth first. It was taller than the kayak paddle. I spent the next 15 minutes pushing the boat inch by inch into open water only to find that I had to paddle back to shore and tote everything another 50 yards down the levee.
When we finally got to our spot, I thought my arms might fall off. It was a long paddle through some thick hydrilla. Then some interloper was set up too close to our island . We had to move to a lesser island. I didn’t look at the water when I started putting my decoys out. I picked a spot with no hydrilla. All my decoys were floating away. Mike had to rescue most of them. When we finally got blinded up, it was time to load the guns. We missed the first and only big group of ringers that came in right at first light. By the time I realized they were ducks, they were gone.
Shots after that were slow and what few I had were at a bad angle. I dropped one hen ringer cleanly over the decoys. Mike got two. At least we weren’t skunked. And the clouds stayed in the east and blocked the sun from blinding us.
ofs
Labels: duck hunting 22-23