ChickenFoot

Hit the same spot on the marsh Saturday
that we did on Thursday.  We only heard
one other boat and that guy only shot
twice that we heard.  I like being lonely
on a big ol' marsh especially when we
have a day like yesterday.

Getting out there and setting up were
uneventful.  The water is still well up and
it was four feet deep where it's normally
dry land.  We set up with plants to our
back and our backs to the sunrise and
the forecasted 25mph gusts from the
east.

Shooting time was 6:25.  At 6:15, we
heard shooting (from someone else not
the neighboring boat) followed immediately
by the blackbellied whistling ducks that
always clear out of the area just before
shooting time.  Apparently, that hunter
wasn't going to let that happen to him.

We decided to try a different approach.
The three of us got on our whistles and
began calling the bbwds.  We actually turned
a group of about 20 that swung around
us and came straight at the boat.  But,
it was only 6:20 and we held fire.  We
stayed hard on the whistles and the
ducks stayed right behind us.  I had
the three of us turn our backs to the
decoys and get ready to shoot just
as shooting time arrived.  Fortunately,
Jim hollered, "Behind you!" and Stu
and I turned back around and were
able to drop two immature birds out
of a group of about eight that came on
our right.  I rewarded my adherence
to the law by jumping out of the
boat on the retrieve and landing
right on the tail of my Go-Devil
long tail.  The pain was instantaneous -
I thought I had cracked my tail bone
or another vertebrae.  But, the 5mm
waders I had on must have cushioned
the shock and I have naught but a
nasty bruise today.

It wasn't too long after that that I saw
a nice, plump duck zinging straight in
from my right.  I dropped a beautiful
drake woody.



After that, it was all teal all the time.  We
varied between singletons all the way
up to groups of a couple dozen.  The
big groups always seemed to hit us
at bad times.  It wasn't until the last
big wad (the 10 o'clock duck) came
in that Jim doubled and Stu and I each
dropped one.  I ended up limiting, Jim
5, and Stu 4.  Another big day.

Stu got a very nice drake blue
winged teal.

We breasted out 13 of those 15 ducks,
the 14 from the Thanksgiving day hunt,
the fulvous from our Tuesday hunt, and
two wood ducks from Early Teal.  It took
four POUNDS of bacon to wrap the
marinated breasts.  I was able to squeeze
all of them on the grill and cooked them
up medium rare.  They were juicy and
excellent.  We only quit eating because
we ran out of room.  Stu's bwt and my
wood duck, we plucked whole and cooked,
but - at least for me - the breasts were
much tastier.

ofs