Saturday Duck Hunt

Sorry for the long delay between posts, haven't been getting the time to document the adventures lately but getting back in the groove now. With a cold front pushing down this weekend I thought it would be a good time to hit the saltmarsh for some waterfowl. I have a co-worker new to the area who fowled in Georgia and was longing to give the Chesapeake Bay gunning a try.

I loaded up the boat with 30 goose decoys and a small puddle duck spread to put out and headed to one of my local spots. Got the decoys set and boat blind ready by legal shooting time and then all there was to do was wait. 

We started seeing flights of birds coming off roost and could have easily taken a few mallards that blew by had i seen them coming but such is hunting. After about 5 minutes a group of mallards burned by, i pulled up, shot once despite being a long shot and low and behold one of them folded up and came down making a splash.

Soon after we had a jag of gadwalls do the fly by and we proceeded to let loose a couple rounds. Two birds fell from the sky. Both were crippled but still swimming so I opted for the lively one to chase down first. With the strong tail wind they had landed an easy 80 yards away. while getting the first one, the second one puled a houdini move and literally disappeared before my eyes.

 

 

Shortly after 9:30am we called the hunt  after not seeing any birds for a while so that we could make it to Pop's Drive-In in Grafton for their famous breakfast. Boy was it worth it. Everybody had a good time and some killer breakfast. What more can you ask for?


Photo of the morning harvest with the Virginia Traveling decoy. This year it is a black duck hand carved by a friend of mine. We mail it around the state to a different group of hunters from the DuckHuntingChat.com forums for fun. Everybody writes a story and keeps tally of the species and numbers shot over it for the year.