The Texas Duck Circus

My buddy Greg was on his way out the door to go see a movie when he glanced at the calendar. Oh my! Bill's plane is landing today, as in right now!" he yelled. Out the door he went and off the airport. I gathered my gun case and luggage from the baggage claim area and headed outside. I was there for only seconds when my friend pulled up and said, "Ready to go?" Totally in the dark about how close I came to spending hours at the airport, I jumped in and said, "Now that's service!"

We had just enough time that evening to make the trip from San Antonio to Three Rivers, Texas. We gathered our tools of the trade, hooked up the boat and made the 80 mile excursion to Choke Canyon Resevoir. We only had about an hour and a half to hunt. I asked Greg if he thought we had enough time. He was rather cocky in his response that we had more than enough! He was right. It was unreal. We had our limit in 45 minutes! This included the circus of the revolving ducks!

At one point we were shooting ducks so fast that Greg's yellow lab, Gator, had a difficult time keeping up with the retrieves! Greg made the comment that we should be over half way to our limit. I reached down to grab more shells just in time to see Gator drop a gadwall in the bottom of the boat. Gator then ran out the back of the 17 foot jon boat and jumped in after another bird. At the same time the feathered Houdini, with a broken wing, ran out the front of the boat! I quickly surveyed the duck pile, and to my surprise only found five ducks! I loaded my gun in time to finish off the escapee! Gator was able to retrieve two other "would be" escape artists. What a circus! I learned to pay closer attention after that! After all, Gator was busy enough retrieving our birds without having to do it twice! He was happy as could be. He loved every second of it as any good retriever would!

We added five different species to the duck pile that evening. I was impressed, but more impressed as we harvested 11 species total in three days! That just does not happen in Ohio!

I made four trips to Texas to hunt ducks and was never disappointed! I brought back a beautifully plumed blue wing teal that we will never see in an Ohio autumn. The taxidermist also mounted a Ross's goose, and the best gadwall drake that I have ever seen! We shot our limit of ducks each day the first three years. The last trip was slower, but the last day we were there, the flights arrived. We harvested a three man limit in two and a half hours. I vowed that I would return to the Central Flyway, if not to Texas!