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NOTHING BUT HUNTING, HUNTING & MORE HUNTING!

By: Ron Wilson

January 8, 2003.... A couple weeks of nothing but hunting, hunting and more hunting. I have been chasing ducks and geese from one side of the valley to the other. It may sound crazy but I have found that the ducks will be on the west side one day and on the east side the next.

On Christmas Day I was in the blind with a fellow hunter who had been raised, that on Christmas Day you go duck and goose hunting. I guess back in the good old days the ladies liked to have the men out of the house and out of the way while they prepared Christmas Dinner.

Our day started off as I met him on the east side of the valley. I got out of my truck to put my waders in the back. I had left the engine running so that we would have a warm comfortable place to sit. I slammed the
door shut, went around to the other side of the truck and discovered that I had locked myself out! Fortunately my hunting partner had a cell phone, so a quick Christmas morning call to Diana and she was soon on her way with a spare key so I could get back into my truck and shut off the engine. 

We finally got in the blind right at shooting time. Beautiful day and the birds were flying. A pair of sprig (pintail) came in and lit too far away to shoot at. We place the farthest decoy at 40 yards to let us know that we are wasting our ammo if we shoot at anything past that. You'll just end up crippling a bird that will fly off to die somewhere else.

Next was a flock of mallards that worked the spread. We shot nothing but holes in the sky.

A small flock of widgeon came in and we managed to down one. Things started looking up as another bunch came in hot and fast right over the blind. My partner downed one just over head, but when we turned to shoot them going away they were right in the sun.

More birds worked the spread but we seemed to be out of sink all morning long and just couldn't get our hunting act together. Its not unusual for one of us to have an off day of shooting but this day I don't think either
one of us could of hit a bear in the ass with a bread pan!

On Sunday December 31st, we "whacked um". Mallards, Sprig and Widgeon were everywhere. Specks, Snows and Honkers were abundant, the waterfowl were really moving. We had flock after flock of birds decoy in, but it was another off shooting day for the 3 of us. Instead of knocking down 3 to 5 birds per flock, we usually knocked down just two. I swear I watched one duck "duck" my shot, just as I pulled the trigger, he pulled his head back to his body and flared away from the blind. 

We had the birds right in our face and more than once the birds never fell until the 3 shot hit them at 40 yards! I should take my full choke out and put in a modified, but shooting days with ducks in your face are the exception and not the rule. Usually you get the ducks to decoy within about 25 yards of you and that's about as good as it gets!

I am having a great time hunting this year and meeting lots of old friends and making new ones. It seems that the guys have started opening up a little more to me since I no longer write for the Modesto Bee. Another stipulation is that I give you little to no information about where and what we are doing.

I understand where they are coming from, as I see more and more that we really don't have very many true hunters around. A true hunter is one who gets as much enjoyment out of setting up a spread of decoys, calling the birds and watching them work the spread, as they do killing the birds. They believe in getting the waterfowl to commit to the spread and come in close shooting range and then they dispatch them. If you think about it, it makes good sense, why scratch a bird from a flock when you can get them in right, and down a bunch. Nothing like having 6 to 8 mallards decoy into a spread and none leave!

Good hunting in the field is something that you don't witness very much anymore, as most hunters I watch don't care about anything but shooting at the birds as they go flying by. They would be amazed at what they could do if they worked the waterfowl and let them get in range so that they could make quick work of them.

On News Years Day I was treated to another great Honker Hunt. In your face, legs backpedaling as they suddenly realized they had made a bad mistake. Nothing like watching a 15 pound honker set his wings from several hundred yards high, float gracefully down to the spread, that everyone worked so hard to set out, and then have them try to light right on top of you like it was planned was truly amazing to watch. Its really something to be part of a hunting trip where everything just goes together like it was a script in a play!

While 2002 was a great year for a lot of  honkers, 2003 was not a good year for 16 of them so far!

My advice to hunters is to watch those hunters that are successful a good percent of the time when the birds are here, they are doing something right!