A Gentlemen's Hunt

I was sitting in the living room half watching TV on a Friday night. I was listening to the rain pounding on the glass of the French doors. I was supposed to be going deer hunting in the morning, but that was going to be miserable in the cold rain. Being a waterfowl hunter, I am no stranger to either cold or rain, but deer hunting requires you to be still as a statue for extended periods of time. Not fun in that weather!

 As my wife flipped the channel to the latest Hallmark movie, I noticed that I received a text.  "Now who could that be?", I wondered. It was my buddy Dan who lives in Lewis Center. He inquired, "What are you doing tomorrow?" Immediately I remembered that the north zone was in, and Dan lives in the north zone! Oh yes! I love to hunt ducks and I now have a good reason NOT to sit in that tree stand in the rain!

I made arrangements to meet Randy at the Park-N-Ride at 5:20. That meant I would have to get up at 4:00. We agreed to rendezvous at Dan's house at 6:15 and leave at 6:30. Right away I realized we could not get to the lake by shooting time. Dan said that we would arrive there about 7:45 and be set up around 9:00. It was a "gentleman's hunt!"

 I knew that Dan did these "gentleman's hunts” as he calls them, but I have never been a participant. I like to be there ready to go before sun-up, so as to catch the early fliers. It is a well-documented fact however that mallards like to come back from the fields in the mid-morning hours to get a drink. We call it the 10:00 flight.

It was fine. I was with friends, and I love spending time with good friends in a duck boat! My friend Dan is known for having plenty of Mojo’s in his spread of blocks. Some guys call him the Mojo Man! We put 7 full sized Mojo’s out that day. Along with the motorized flappers, Dan brought a boat load of size 72 Restle Mallard decoys. I have 24 size 72 Herter’s myself. They float so nice in the choppy water. It really makes a difference. I tried to count them a couple of times on the hunt. I will guess that we had 55 big blocks out and another 16 nice looking plastic geese. A nice arrangement of those beauties made our spread look REAL!  He had a plastic duck decoy that he found that he named “Black Jack”. He went out last.

We were there about 20 minutes before we saw our first ducks. They cupped up and turned west. We watched them cut the north wind and drop right down in front of a McDonald’s on the lake shore.  Dan blurted out, “Those ducks want French fries.” Shortly before 10:00 we had a pair lock up and coming right at us. We hunkered down behind his Avery Quickset blind and Dan said, “get ready.” The birds were about 45 yards out when they flared. Dan send, “take ’em!” Well, we tried but in spite of all the barking of our 12 gauge loads, we did not scratch a single feather. We laughed at each other and reloaded the guns.

Shortly thereafter, we had a single work us and fly off. Dan told Randy that it could have landed on the other side of the island to which we were tied. Randy decided to get out of the boat and walk to the other side. After he got to the other side, we had 8 mallards work us. Regardless of how much sweet music Dan and I played our duck calls, they just circled and circled. “ Quaaaak Quaaak Quaack Quack  Quack! Tickit tickit tickit tickit tickit! We hardly had time to sit back from our disappointment when a pair of puddlers appeared out of nowhere, cupped up and dropping fast! At 25 yards Dan gave the command and we each dropped one with a splash. Dan’s black Lab followed their splash with a belly smacker of his own as he launch from the bow. High fives all around!

Around noon Dan got out his camp stove and heated up a pot of  “Mac-N-Chilli”. We had a hot lunch which was all a part of the “gentlemen’s hunt”. The smell of the chilli was about to drive me crazy! Needless to say, it didn’t last long! It was 35 degrees and we had a 25 mph wind at our back. My toes were a little cold and I had a slight shiver. That hot chilli (complete with Tobasco sauce) warmed us right up!

We saw ducks fairly consistently and bagged 3 more by 2:00.  At 4:00 the “gentleman’s hunt” was over, and we were off the water before it was completely dark! I don’t know how many times I will initiate the gentlemen’s hunt guidelines, but it was fun. When I retire, if I want to hunt every day during the week, it might be the way to go!