oldfatslow: Saturday Hunt

Hunted the River with Rob and MT. We
met at the Racetrack at 3:00AM and
hurried to the ramp. Once again,
we were the only people trying to
launch. And, once again, there
was a sacrificed rooster. Only
this time, there was no bad
juju. Whew!

It was a two hour plus trip on
the river. We made pretty good
time until we hit some pretty
heavy fog. I kept glued to the
gps while Rob manned the Qbeam.
He hasn't quite mastered the fine
art of not hitting his father in
the eyes with 3 million candlepower
beams. I about wrecked the boat
once. We ran aground a couple times
where the river had dropped off and
where I got off channel. Still we
got down to where I had seen birds
when Craig and I had scouted the
week before. I turned in a cut
early and beached the boat pretty
hard, but was within 2-300 yards
of where I wanted to be. We
decided to abandon the boat (it
definitely wasn't going anywhere)
and head out on the mudflats to
the pond I had mapped in.

We made three palmetto fan booths
and set up with the sun to our backs
about 20 feet from the water. There
was absolutely no other cover
around. We tossed the decoys out
but kept them close to shore. It
was ankle deep water.

Here's the boat camoed up in the
distance.

Here are the decoys. I put the coots
to the left as blockers and pinners
in the middle. The teal (out of
frame) were on the right.

I barely got set up and into my
blind for a little quiet time
before shooting time. MT whispered
that there were ducks landing in
the decoys. When shooting time
came, I told Rob and then stood
up to tell MT. Right as I spoke,
I heard a splash. I looked up
and a nice teal was in the middle
of the dekes and looking very
worried. I yelled, "Up duck" and
flushed him. Boom! and I had a
nice drake GWT. A bit later and
MT got a hen. Then it went
cold.

We were covered up in snipe, so
I went on walk about to see if
I could get a few of those. At
one point, I fired at a snipe
and then heard MT and Rob
blasting away. When I got back
with a snipe, I found that a
group of teal had landed just
out of range. When I fired,
they took off and flew right
by MT and Rob. MT got another
teal and Rob got his first
true double - a nice drake
hen pair.

I settled into my blind again.
A bit later a group of 20-30
teal landed way to our left
those were followed by a
second group. When a third
group started heading in, Rob
and I got on our whistles
and started peeping. The
teal turned and flew right
across the spread. MT and
I each knocked one down. I
had hopes for more teal, but
that was it for the day. I
managed to end the day with
another hen merganser. They
just look and fly too much
like ringers when you haven't
seen a lot of ringers in the
season.

Here we are picking up our blinds
and gear.