Youth Hunt 2017

Took the same young man and his dad to this
year's Youth Duck Hunt that I have taken the
last two years.  He had second pick and vaulted
to first when #1 didn't show.

We hunted the same hole that Mike T. and I
had hunted so successfully the week before.
Much (most?) of the hydrilla has been eaten
over and that hole still looked good.  Well,
it looked good two weeks ago.  I didn't
take time to look it over this morning and
it too has gotten devoured.


Still we got launched and to our draw with
no dramatics. There were only two or three
other boats in the reservoir.  And I was
afraid any ducks wouldn't be pressured to
keep moving.  Wow, was I wrong.  Right
at first light there were hundreds of ringers
flying all around.  Even a lonely hen mottled
duck flew by quacking her heart out.

Before Shooting Time

The landing zone

Sunrise

Teal decoys to the side

But most of the ducks were flying wide
of us.  The young man hit a coot on the
wing and then dropped one of a pair of
fulvous ducks at altitude.  All day long
he was hitting the high ducks. He ended
up dropping three hen ringers and another
coot too.

The flights of ducks kept getting fewer,
farther apart, and less intense.  He
really did well and rang off a lot of
shots.

When we went out to retrieve the ducks
a turtle had beheaded one of the ringers
and started on one of the coots.  The
fulvous was long gone - either eaten
or swum off crippled.  Sad.

This is always my favorite hunt and
we had a really successful day.  See
y'all next year.

Okey Dokey, Mr. Pahokey

Got through this year pretty well.  It was below
average - 43 ducks as a family, but it was also
a below average year for water depth on the
St. Johns.  And it was abnormally warm this
year.  The depth and the warmth worked to
limit the quantity and the location of the
ducks.

The boat broke down a few times, but was
able to limp out of the marsh every time.
Hunting Turkey Creek, Big Bend, Jackleg
Slough, and West Side generated limited
variety of ducks, but a surprising number
of modus. 

I was pleased to hunt with some new
friends, Deke, Danny, Mike, and Terry.
None of them got super hunts.

I got to hunt with my old buddy, Mike
T. and with two of my boys Craig and
LT.  We got into the local WMA and
had primo spots each time.  That
generated most of the birds that we
ended up taking.

For one hunt, LT and I set up facing
the coming sunrise.  It didn't matter.
Shooting time came a half hour before
sunup and we were limited 16 minutes
later.