I had to go to a meeting up north today, but was able to slip out to the marsh late in the afternoon for a duck hunt with my brother-in-law, DJ. I hadn’t planned on going, so I didn’t have any gear, but he was able to outfit me pretty well. I did have to wear an old pair of his waders, which were 5 sizes too big for me. I felt like a clown on the long walk to the blind, but it was well worth it.  We had a great shoot with fairly steady action. The best was when a small flock of ducks were landing in a pothole several hundred yards from our position and DJ was able to blast the ducks out with an alarm call, then brought them over to us with a series of quacks and feeding chuckles. Casadore, his huge male lab did a fantistic job, as usual, on the retrieves. It made for a great evening.

Duck Hunting the day after Thanksgiving has become a tradition for us. The ladies go fight the crowds at the malls and we head to the marsh. This year was particularly fun. Amazingly, We had the marsh all to ourselves (we didn’t hear another shot within a mile of us).
We slept in while the ladies hit the ridiculously early sales, and then we headed out at noon. We took a couple buckets and a built temporary blind with fragmities. It was a windy afternoon, which kept the ducks flying. We had steady action all afternoon and finished with our last bird (all mallards) just minutes before the end of shooting hours. It was an awesome day.
 

This Saturday I had an invite to go duck hunting up north. I had a great time and saw some great dog work. Saturday was a warm blue-bird day and the ducks weren’t moving around too much. Despite the lack of birds flying, I was able to shoot six ducks; a mixed bag of gadwalls, and teal. My hunting partner even shot a wood duck, a fairly uncommon duck in the area. That kind of made the day. We tried our darndest, but couldn’t get the last few ducks to fill our limits. I guess that was ok though. That just means I don’t have to eat as many ducks!

One of the best things was the dog work. DJ, my hunting buddy has a well trained chocolate lab (Casador), that was a pleasure to hunt with and a lot of fun to watch. We had a wing-tipped duck that sailed several hundred yards off before going in. It was fun to watch DJ direct him into the area with hand signals then Casador worked the scent and retrieved the duck. Numerous other ducks tried the diving game, but Casador knew how that game was played and would wait patiently on the duck, then would dive under after them. We had a great day on the marsh. I look forward to our next duck hunt.