Waterfowl season outlook, 2011

dennishoddy · Nov 22, 2011

1000YRDSHOT said:
Went out this morning, decided not to throw any decoys out. My buddy and I shot 12 gadwall and 2 hooded mergansers by 7:30am.

Sounds like an easy morning. I'm sure seeing lots of the ducks flying.

1000YRDSHOT · Dec 9, 2011

Saw a few lards flying this morning......

View attachment 1722

View attachment 1723

View attachment 1724

dennishoddy · Dec 9, 2011

Thats a hell of a swarm of ducks!!

Well, it looks like I'm going duck hunting for the first time in 15 years or so.
My buddy called last night and said since the quail, and pheasant are so poor this year, he wants to hit some ponds this weekend. He said the big pond where he deer hunts has thousands of ducks on it. I'll get my stamp and some steel rounds this evening, and see how it goes.

dennishoddy · Dec 10, 2011

Since all the ponds were frozen this morning, we decided to build a blind. On the way to put it out now.

View attachment 1727

1000YRDSHOT · Dec 10, 2011

Looks like you are well on your way to having a nice blind, Dennis.

We hunted the river this morning, got there a little late. Shot two limits and two hoodies. Seems like a lot of birds moved out. I heard geese flying south last night around 10. Wish we could have hunted about 1400 yards NW of where we were. They were pouring in there all morning long!!

First flight of geese heading to the fields.

View attachment 1728

The bend to the NW where all the ducks were.

View attachment 1729

8 of the ducks and 2 hoodies. Lost 4.

View attachment 1730

My hunting bud, Landon and his pup.

View attachment 1731

dennishoddy · Dec 10, 2011

I love the composition of your photo's 1000yrdshot. Very nice touch.

We took the blind out to where we thought it should go, but quickly found all of the ponds frozen over, so we decided to go after some pheasant. We stopped at the first field, and spotted some ducks flying into a tiny little pond. Evidently its spring fed, as it didn't have any ice on it at all, and was covered with Mallards.
We popped up over the dam, and managed to bust 6 of them. I was lucky enough to get a double with one shot.
My buddy has a white Lab that is just a year old. He has been working with her on blind retrieves in the yard, and the training paid off with her retreiving them all.
We went ahead, and hit two quarters with our dogs, for pheasant, only getting two points on a hen and a rooster. The rooster came up on my buddy's side, and for some reason, his Benelli would not fire. He jacked in another round, and it fired, but the bird was too far off.
Not much to show for a day in the field, but we still had a great time, and got in tons of great dog work.

1000YRDSHOT · Dec 11, 2011

dennishoddy said:
I love the composition of your photo's 1000yrdshot. Very nice touch.

We took the blind out to where we thought it should go, but quickly found all of the ponds frozen over, so we decided to go after some pheasant. We stopped at the first field, and spotted some ducks flying into a tiny little pond. Evidently its spring fed, as it didn't have any ice on it at all, and was covered with Mallards.
We popped up over the dam, and managed to bust 6 of them. I was lucky enough to get a double with one shot.
My buddy has a white Lab that is just a year old. He has been working with her on blind retrieves in the yard, and the training paid off with her retreiving them all.
We went ahead, and hit two quarters with our dogs, for pheasant, only getting two points on a hen and a rooster. The rooster came up on my buddy's side, and for some reason, his Benelli would not fire. He jacked in another round, and it fired, but the bird was too far off.
Not much to show for a day in the field, but we still had a great time, and got in tons of great dog work.

Thanks for the compliment, Dennis.

Those are some good looking lards. Looks like you now know where to duck hunt during the freeze.

Dux-R-Us · Dec 11, 2011

[8 of the ducks and 2 hoodies. Lost 4.]

NIce bag. Good on you.

With a retriever how in the world did you lose 4 birds??? Why shoot hoodies? Do you like to eat them??

When I was about 17 (ca. 1977), we shot the hell out of some hoodies in a marsh just inland of Lake Michigan. I mean we killed like 8 or 10 (the limit was more liberal then). I thought I would puke when we cleaned them. I think I made a statement to the like, "If I want to eat fish, I'll catch a fish". I have yet since to even shoot at a hoodie. Maybe next year I will take a drake for a trophy bird. They are truly a beautiful animal.

Did you know hooded mergansers are tree cavity nesters?

Tally ho!

Kevin

Dux-R-Us · Dec 11, 2011

dennishoddy said:
I love the composition of your photo's 1000yrdshot. Very nice touch.

We took the blind out to where we thought it should go, but quickly found all of the ponds frozen over, so we decided to go after some pheasant. We stopped at the first field, and spotted some ducks flying into a tiny little pond. Evidently its spring fed, as it didn't have any ice on it at all, and was covered with Mallards.
We popped up over the dam, and managed to bust 6 of them. I was lucky enough to get a double with one shot.
My buddy has a white Lab that is just a year old. He has been working with her on blind retrieves in the yard, and the training paid off with her retreiving them all.
We went ahead, and hit two quarters with our dogs, for pheasant, only getting two points on a hen and a rooster. The rooster came up on my buddy's side, and for some reason, his Benelli would not fire. He jacked in another round, and it fired, but the bird was too far off.
Not much to show for a day in the field, but we still had a great time, and got in tons of great dog work.

Dennis, you shot a hen!!! Shame on you. In my youth we had the "hen jar". If you killed a hen you had to put $5 in it.

Having written the above, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you were shooting at the drake and also killed the hen by chance.

Cheers

Kevin

1000YRDSHOT · Dec 11, 2011

Dux-R-Us said:
NIce bag. Good on you.

With a retriever how in the world did you lose 4 birds??? Why shoot hoodies? Do you like to eat them??

Did you know hooded mergansers are tree cavity nesters?

Thanks, Kevin.

We were looking into the sun all morning, so we didn't get to make the best shots. Those 4 went down across the river about 600 yards away. One of the hoodies went down 400 yards up river, and floated back down to us.

I usually just feed the divers and mergansers to my pup, as a reward for her hard work. I have a mounted hoodie. If you want to see it, go to the Waterfowl trophy forum. Look at post #15.

I did not know that about the Hooded Merganser.

dennishoddy · Dec 11, 2011

Dux-R-Us said:
Dennis, you shot a hen!!! Shame on you. In my youth we had the "hen jar". If you killed a hen you had to put $5 in it.

Having written the above, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you were shooting at the drake and also killed the hen by chance.

Cheers

Kevin

We have the same jar on quail. Shoot a hen on the flush, pay the $.

Not really, but it makes for a good story. I got to thinking today about how many years its been since the last duck hunt.
We were using lead shot, as the steel regulations had not started.
We did about the same as yesterday, busting some mallards on a pond in the bull pasture of a big osage county ranch.
They kept bulls in this pasture, and when they saw my truck, they thought it was a feed truck, so here they would come. Shoot the ducks, retrieve them and get the heck out of there. They would butt the truck, looking for feed.