Early Teal 2014

The past repeats itself.  Another bust hunt.
We did a lot of scouting, but only saw
three teal on the marsh.  Friday, during our
last scout, the motor started acting up.
Called Danny and he said it was either
a bad fuel pump or a clogged carb and
we were on our own if we decided to
hunt the next day.  So, we decided to
hunt close to the bridge and upstream
of that. 

Friday night, the rains came.  I should
have left the plug out of the boat
because it was a pool in the morning.
Even more unfortunately, we didn't
see it at 0400 when we loaded our
gear.  I did notice that it was a mite
hard to get up to speed on I95.  When
we got to the launching ramp, it took
several minutes to drain the boat
while others were busily launching
theirs.  All our gear was sodden and
then the rains came again.

We got out to our fallback spot and
got well set up.  The sun, wind, and
broom grass were at our back.  There
was lots of open water, duck week,
smart weed, and seeds all around.
Surprisingly, the water was only
mid-thigh deep.  It should have
been an ideal spot. 

There was some light leaking
through the rain clouds, but
not a duck to be seen until
late in the AM when two
came from behind us and
went straight out.  We didn't
even realize they were teal
until it was too late.  Somewhere
behind us there was a wood duck
squealing, but no love.  Finally,
two ducks came flying right
from the stern toward the
bow.  We could have easily
whacked and owned them,
except they were mottled
ducks and illegal to shoot.

We heard lots of shooting from
south of us, but they were still
out there at 0930 when we gave
up.

We had to oil up the guns well
and load all electronic gear into
bags of rice.  Still, it was a lot
of fun being on the marsh.
Regular season can't get here
fast enough.

ofs