A Duck Hunt to Remember!

It was the third day of our December Kansas hunt. Larry and I sat at the breakfast table drinking steaming hot coffee while stuffing bacon and eggs in our mouth. All the while, we listened to the frigid north wind roar past the trailer we were renting. At the moment, we were enjoying the warmth of the indoors and sweet aroma of coffee and bacon! We were pulled in two directions. We would really like to stay in the comfort of the indoors, but at the same time, we knew the birds would be there in numbers! We decided to formulate our strategy at the breakfast table. The previous two mornings we wasted time making decisions, then had to frantically get the spread set up before shooting time. It was too cold to have that conversation on the water!

There wasn’t much to stop the Kansas wind. It just seemed to cut right through us as it swept through the plains. My companion, Larry, trusty lab, Gunner, and I found a slightly protected bank along the river. The bank was just at the correct angle to break a good bit of the wind, but at the same time allow us to put the decoys where they could be seen from both directions up and down the river. That coupled with the fact that the sun was pretty much at our back, put us in pretty good position. The sun at our back meant that the shadows helped hide us from the eyes of our prey, and for an added bonus we didn’t have to stare into the sun!

It seemed like the best possible spot. Right at shooting time a three mallards agreed. They came out of nowhere and joined the Herter’s fakes. Our Benelli shotguns announced their arrival, and two birds splashed down. A good start to a bitter cold morning. The 17 degree temperature wasn’t horrible by itself, but the 25-30 mph winds made it quite chilly! It didn’t take long for ice to start forming around and on the dekes. The ducks however were not discouraged from joining our party. A flock of goldeneye soon cruised the edge of our spread, and two were counted against our limit. Not long afterwards, I scored a single drake mallard who swooped in from above the trees.

 Suddenly, we heard the unmistakable sound of snow geese closing in fast. Our guns at the ready. We could only helplessly watch as one flock after another flew by 100 yards away only five to thirty feet off the water! “Oh! They were flying right off the point where we were set up on yesterday!” I moaned. Larry reminded me, “You have already shot 11 geese and 12 ducks in two days. Do you really want to sit out there in this wind?” His logic was irrefutable. As much as I would have loved to drop a couple of snow geese, I knew we will get our share of ducks right there!

After a flock of about 100 widgeon flew over just out of range, a pair of canada geese honked over a field 250 yards down wind. I honked, cluck and whined at the reluctant duo and they started to turn. A few more honks in response to theirs and they were out in front of us for a shot. I swung ahead of the closest bird, about 65 yards away. I hesitated just a bit to allow my swing to lengthen the lead and pulled the trigger. That honker folded like a rock. “Yes!” I shouted. That big airplane sized bird landed 100 yards out. We decided to run out with the boat and retrieve it rather than send Gunner out on a long retrieve in those conditions. He would have had ice on his head as the waves hit him in the side of the face. He didn’t need that!

Larry used my landing net to scoop up the canada goose so as not to take a chance on getting water above his waterproof gloves. There were a couple of decoys that required our attention. After returning the decoys back to the river, I made the mistake of grabbing the gunnel of the boat with my wet glove. The glove instantly froze to the boat! That made it really difficult to steer!  

We got the boat back into position, and waited for the next action. We had no idea what was in store for us! A memory I wish to never forget! It was probably 10 minutes when we decided to break out the peanut butter and honey sandwiches. We sat there eating while Gunner watched intently all wrapped up in his wool blanket.

 He wasn’t watching for birds now. He was hoping one of us would drop our sandwich so he could scarf it up! I looked up in time to see a flock of 30 mallards coasting by with the wind at 30 yards. I grabbed my gun and picked out a green head. “Wait.”, Larry said hoarsely through his sandwich! I hesitated. I slowly turned at looked at him. I was visibly upset. “Watch’em”, he whispered. Sure enough the ducks turned back into the wind and back toward out spread. I have seen ducks go down wind and turn around before, but this flock did something surprising. Instead of the entire flock swinging like a door, each duck turned individually. It may have been that there wasn’t room for the group to swing together as one unit because the trees on the river bank were too close. I don’t know, but here they came. These big ducks cupped and came right into the hole! “Take’em!” I said excitedly.  Larry already had his gun up. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” As I watched the ducks fall. I quickly scanned the spread and saw 6 mallards floating belly up in the dekes! I saw Larry throw a shell in his gun and swing on a drake that inexplicably came back through. “Whoa!” I screamed. “What?” “Look in the water I yelled!”, then stood up. “We both tripled!” It was high fives followed by some war hoops!

It wasn’t quite 10:00 and we were packing up. I have shot triples on geese and ducks, but I still can’t believe that both of us to tripled on mallards from the same flock! That made this a duck hunt to remember!