Weather on Mobile Bay was a little warm but tolerable, nice light north wind to keep a ripple on the water.
We were all set up at 5:27, 20 minutes before shooting time. At shooting time, the bays north of us sounds like a firing range. Where we were it was a slower start with sporadic shooting. We had a few birds buzz us right about 6:00,turned out to be a big flock of buffies but they landed about 100 yards away. Had a lot more buffies buzzing around the first hour or two, but none decoyed. And they all disapeared.
I totally blew an early shot on a bluebill landing the decoys, shot behind it all three times. Then my partner missed a pair of redheads. I promptly missed a trio of them about 30 minutes later. Had a pair of pintails circle 4 times but never come close enough for a shot.
After that, we didn't pull the trigger for a long while. Most of the ducks that came into our area either went east of us (to where a buddy was set up) or continued north. We saw lots of gadwalls and redheads, just couldn't get any to come in to us. We had a few here and there come in, but nothing like the guys east and west of us.
We toughed it out until 1:00pm, I ended up with a redhead, gadwall and a mottled duck. That was my first mottled duck since January 2004. Partner got a redhead and a mallard that came in while I was out of the boat getting my gadwall, first mallard ever killed in my boat! My buddy to the east and his wife ended up with 11: 3 redheads, 2 pintails, a mallard and 5 gadwalls. That's the most pintails and mallards we've killed in one day in many years.
Oerall not a bad day, not a great one, a little frustrating but not bad. I'll be back at it in the morning.
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