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DUCK SEASON FINALE

By: Ron Wilson 

January 30, 2003.... I took vacation last week to do even more waterfowl hunting. What should have been a great waterfowl season ended as a dismal one for my hunting partners and me, as we chose comfort over putting in that extra work it takes to be successful at harvesting waterfowl.

Would you believe I spent 8 straight days hunting and on 6 of them I never fired a shot.

It was not all a waste of time as I had good fellowship and I learned some things that I hope to apply next year to make my waterfowl hunting more successful.

Saturday my son Donald, grandson Derick and his friend, 13 year old Brandon Dorsett of Waterford, and I went
to San Luis Refugee, waterfowl hunting. Donald had reservation number 8 for the area so we were assured one of our favorite spots. By 6 a.m. the decoys were put in the pond and we had picked spots to hide in the tulles while hunting. 

At 6:25 a.m. four other guys moved into the lower portion of the pond about 50 yards away from us and were planning on setting up. I informed them that I wasn't going to let them hunt over my decoys and they needed to move. They moved another 40 yards down the slough and set up. Damn inconsiderate duck hunters. That's one thing I hate about hunting the refugees, all the jerks they attract. High shooting pass shooters who wouldn't know how to get a duck to decoy close enough to shoot if their life depended on it. The ducks would decoy and make a swing and the four guys near us would blast away.

Around noon the other hunters finally left because the fog cleared enough that the birds wouldn't come near anybody. The birds would flare before they ever made a pass because the hunters were standing out in the open and the ducks could see them from a long ways off.

Once the other hunters left, the ducks started working like they should and the boys got to see the ducks work the decoys!  2 ducks would come in and they would die, 3 ducks would come in and they would die, its easy to kill ducks if you let them get in range! Brandon's first duck was a laughing mallard (drake Spoonbill) The birds are marked similar to a mallard but the wide bill shaped like a spoon is a dead giveaway that its not a mallard. The spoonbill is only about half the size of a mallard so that's another way you can tell them apart.

Brandon learned quite a bit on his first duck hunting experience. Setting out and picking up decoys, not shooting over another hunters head, which goes with safe gun handling, and what range is good for steel shot. He did make a 50 yard shot to bring down his first duck, but I settled the boys down to where they wouldn't shoot until the birds decoyed into that magical 30 yard range. Their shooting improved 100% at that range! I don't think they realized that the birds would quickly be close to 50 yards away by the second shot if they missed the first at 30 yards!

I know Derick and Brandon didn't like this old goat dictating to them on how they should shoot ducks but I would like for them to learn that in order to hunt waterfowl and do it right you need to get the birds in your face. I know they enjoyed shooting at the last few flocks of ducks better than they did the first bunches. They really seemed to enjoy seeing the birds come in close before we downed them!

It was another good day in the marsh and hopefully an educational one for Brandon!
 
The bad part is how much heavier the gear is going back to the truck after a days hunting. It seemed that everything was waterlogged and twice as heavy going back to the truck as it was going out that morning and I know they moved the vehicles back another half mile while we were out hunting. Well it looked and seemed like it anyway! Once the adrenalin and excitement is gone, reality sets in,  this duck hunting is nothing but a lot of hard work!