Opening Day Duckies

Wyatt and I hit South Park in search for some duckies! The weather was a crisp high teens and multiple layers of clothing helped to stay warm. We preloaded his boat the night before so all we had to do was push off so. The alarm went of at 5:15 and shortly after we were on the water headed for the islands we had discussed about for months! It's always nice when a plan works out the way you hoped! We hunted the lake over our mallard decoys till about 9:30.

For those who know I just started calling and this was the first time that I could put my 2 months of practice to use. I had 4 occassions where I was able to call the birds in close enough to shoot. 2 flockes spooked as I dropped the call and reached for the gun...Lesson learned. 1 flock Wyatt and I blasted 5 shots and didn't drop a bird. The most rewarding part of the day was when a hen and a drake gadwall circled twice before getting them in shooting range. Wyatt thought they were too far away and didn't pull the trigger when I said, "Take'em!" I dropped the hen on the first shot and my gun fouled when exhausting the first shell. Pissed that the gun jammed but excited that I was able to get these birds to circle twice before I knocked one down!

Afterwords we walked down to the South Platte and jump shot 2 hen mallards. My first successful jump shooting experience as I look forward to doing it again in the future. That was short lived since Wyatt's pump jammed and just about lost everything as he was trying to repair in in the field. Good thing his father-in-law came into town yesterday and happens to be the president of a gun club back in Missouri.

On the way home we stopped by a pond and quickly glassed it to discover that it had a few big ducks on it. Since Wyatt's gun was jammed, so he generously headed to one side of the pond as I went the other way and hunkered down in the reeds and awaited for him to jump the birds towards me. Well by chance right as the birds lifted off the water surface a gust of wind blew the ducks within shooting range and managed to knock down another hen. On the way back to the car I managed to spook up another hen, missed on the first two shots and then slowed down and get her a good lead and boom! Downed duckie!!!! That made 4 hen mallards for the day!!!!

Total ducks was 13
4 hen mallards
1 hen gadwall
1 hen blue wing teal
7 coots
1 dove

Wyatt and I showing off our kill - Sorry my photo blogging is not up to par!