You’ll have to wait for a report from the Missouri rifle opener. This afternoon The Old Man and I hit the marsh and had a fun shoot in a cold rain. You can tell by looking at the picking room that some new ducks are down and everyone is having a good hunt:

About a month ago I was talking around the tailgate with friend and loyal reader CA-Chucky. Our trucks were parked at the edge of a flood and we needed to get to a water control gate a half mile away. I’d waded as far as I could get before getting to a drainage ditch that was way over my head. So I walked back and discussed the situation with my resident safety officer. CA-Chucky told me I was crazy, just leave it and come back when the water comes down, but I knew as soon as the water came down we would begin losing water, thus hurting our chances for killing ducks. So I borrowed an inflatable cooler and some rope and went back to the ditch. Theoretically CA was going to call for help if I got swept downstream. I tied the rope to my wrist and the other end to a tree, then I hugged the cooler and swam for it.

And last Saturday it was all worth it:

While CA was in a treestand another friend and I had a wonderful shoot. We shot mostly teal, but we killed a few big ducks and saw several bunches after we were done. A careful look would notice that there are also several doves in the picture! We got back to the trucks and noticed a couple dozen doves in the scrubby trees where we parked. I had a box of 8s that we split up and over the next 20 minutes we killed nearly a limit of doves. Then it was time for breakfast a, nap, and then it was back to the treestand.

Ducks Unlimited is nice enough to send me a regular news letter that talks about some of the great things they do. They also throw in a few pieces to help you kill more ducks. Someone slipped this through the filters in the second category.

I look at coot decoys and their role in the waterfowler’s arsenal in three ways. First, there aren’t many men brave enough to deploy an all-coot spread, and as such, all-coot spreads are few and far between. Thus, the so-called good ducks don’t encounter such rigs often and theoretically won’t hesitate to decoy.

Second, all-coot spreads are extremely natural in appearance. How many times has your fancy mallard or mallard-mix rig been out-shone by 30 live coots? When I’ve done it, I’ve set 20 to 25 coot decoys in a tight-feeding mass, with a minimum of two pair of those tethered to jerk cords. A pull of the string sets the whole knot to thrashing as if to say – “Hey! There’s a pile of good eats down here!” Birds, particularly widgeon, can’t seem to resist.

And finally, there are coots and the public land waterfowler. I mean, who isn’t going to give a wide berth to the man who arrives at the ramp with a bag full of coot blocks over his shoulder?

Please, for your sake and that of anyone who may learn to hunt from you, do NOT buy, borrow, or use coot decoys unless you are coot hunting. Actually you don’t won’t them even if you are coot hunting.

Most of the ideas in that piece revolve around mixing decoys. Also a waste of time and money, but better than having coot decoys. Idea number 4 is a good one though, adding motion to your spread is always a good idea.

6 Ducks
No more than:
4 Mallards (2 Hens)
3 Wood ducks
2 Scaup
2 Hooded Mergansers
2 Red head
1 Each of pintail, black duck, and canvasback

From here.

Great news from the Feds. I got an email that included some of this information from Ducks Unlimited today! Read the whole release here.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed continuation of liberal hunting season lengths for the upcoming 2009-2010 late waterfowl seasons.

Mississippi Flyway (Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin):
Ducks: A hunting season is proposed of not more than 60 days between September 26, 2009, and January 31, 2010. The proposed daily bag limit is six and may include no more than four mallards (two hens), one mottled duck, three wood ducks, two redheads, two scaup, one black duck, one canvasback and one pintail. The proposed daily bag limit of mergansers is five, only two of which may be hooded mergansers.

Central Flyway (Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and portions of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming):
Ducks: Duck seasons are proposed to be held between September 26, 2009, and January 31, 2010. The daily bag limit would be 6 ducks, with species and sex restrictions as follows: mallard – five, no more than two of which may be females; scaup and redhead – two; wood duck – three; pintail, mottled duck, and canvasback – one. The mottled duck season will begin five days after the beginning of the regular season. The possession limit would be twice the daily bag limit. In the High Plains Mallard Management Unit (roughly west of the 100th Meridian), a 97-day season is proposed. The last 23 days would be able to start no earlier than December 12, 2009. A 74-day season is proposed for the remainder of the Central Flyway.

Now if they’d get the levee’s fixed so we could put the plugs in and catch some of this rain…

Ducks Unlimited hit my inbox with this piece of good news today:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – July 2, 2009 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released its preliminary report today on mid-continent breeding ducks and habitats, based on surveys conducted in May and early June. Total duck populations were estimated at 42 million breeding ducks on the surveyed area. This estimate represents a 13 percent increase over last year’s estimate of 37.3 million birds and is 25 percent above the 1955-2008 long-term average.

And the best area for production? Right above me. The Dakotas had more than double the habitat of last year. Just yesterday I was filling dates on my calendar for duck and deer hunts… It will be here before you know it.

Read the whole release here.

I took this picture yesterday at a place in Eastern Kansas where I turkey hunt. Generally they aren’t even pairing off around here until about now. I haven’t seen a goose sitting on a nest yet. These two must have gotten a head start.

I’m a faithful supporter of DU. Their magazine has solid photography and the occasional decent article, their banquets can be fun too, but mostly I donate because of all the great habitat work they do.

Anyway, I got an email from them yesterday that included a this link to their best pictures of the year. It’s worth checking out.

Well it was the old, “shoulda been here yesterday” deal. Two guys who’d never been goose hunting before plus myself and the friend from Saturday tried for a repeat performance Sunday but it was not to be. We actually were victimized by an unusually strong East wind more than anything else. The geese simply wanted to sit out in the middle where they were inaccessible.

Fortunately each hunter did have the opportunity to notch their first kills:

So I was scheduled to take 3 guys goose hunting today. My co-guide had to back out at the last minute so I called a friend who’s been a part of several of my best shoots this year. What he lacks in polished guiding skills he makes up in fantastic enthusiasm and work effort. He also cooks fried egg sandwiches. This hunt involves an incredible amount of gear and work and frankly, it’s just too much for one guy.

Anyway, the five us took more than an hour to get boats running, decoys deployed, and boats brushed and hidden. We missed a couple of opportunities because we were still setting up after shooting time. No worries. There were plenty more to come. In fact we were running two dogs most of the time, and it was all over way too soon.

I did shoot some pretty crappy video while eating a sandwich and procrastinating on the pick-up.



Eventually we had to pick up because a couple of the guys had an 11:00 appointment. It was such a pretty morning I could have sat and called geese all day.

As of right now it’s looking like we’re on for 4 guys tomorrow… so hopefully we didn’t shoot them all out.