Day 2 Mixed Bag.

Carl

Carl

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What a difference a day makes: Yesterday was warm, muggy and foggy, low was 60, high was 76, light wind and high water.


This morning it was 48 with a 20 mph north wind. The spot I hunted yesterday was high & dry, very low tide. So I hunted by buddies blind 300 yards east in deeper water.


Went solo, got to the ramp by 4:00 am and 4 other boats were already launching. I was first out to the part of the bay I was hunting. And good thing too. All the blinds that still had water around them filled up and 3 separate boats tried to get into the blind I was in. Last boat was at 15 minutes before shooting time (insert expletive) .
Shooting time came & went. Lots of shooting again to the bays to the north. A few around me but not much. I had a bunch hen/juvie drake buffies in & out of the decoys the first 30 minutes, could have limited on them but I passed.
Over the next hour or so, I missed a redheads with all three shots. Killed a juvie drake buffie that I swore was a drake in the low light. Missed a couple of gadwalls. Saw lots of gadwalls coming off the open bay, but none want to come to me. Some look, but none come close enough
Finally had a pair come in & connected with a nice drake gadwall, on the 3rd shot. Took another 2 to anchor it. Then I had a whole flock of giant resident Canadas passed about 30 yards north of my blind. Didn't hear them until they were right on me and needless to say I totally blew it. Miss, misfire, cycle gun, fumbling miss. HOW THE HELL COULD I MISS A 15# GOOSE AT 30 YARDS????? (Gotta clean my gun too)
So now I've gone through almost a box of shells and have two birds!
Took a deep breath, chilled out and decided to concentrate. Out of the hundreds of gadwalls I get two more small groups to come in & I drop two more drakes, each one with one shot.
Then a big diver comes into the decoys feet down. Two shots & its down. Walk to pick up with I thought was a drake redhead only to find a juvenile drake Canvasback! 2nd year in a row I killed a can on the 2nd day of the season. WOOHOOO.
Sit back and watch a pile more flocks of gadwalls come off the open bay and go somewhere way, way, way north of me.
Then about 9:00, two mottle ducks come in from the east, skirt the south and west side of the decoys out of range, go just north of me and then circle back to the east right over the boat! Two shots and beautiful drake mottled duck is down to fill my limit. Like I noted yesterday, I hadn't killed a mottled duck since Jan 2004 and now I've killed one two days in a row. One hell of a start to our season!
Mobile Bay mixed bag (the mix included bad shooting, good shooting and a nice mix of ducks):
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HOW THE HELL COULD I MISS A 15# GOOSE AT 30 YARDS?????
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Carl,

The time this happened to me, I blamed it on faulty factory ammo. The rounds I expended obviously contained no shot in them. After careful consideration of everything, this is only possible explanation there is.


Glad you had a good hunt.
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Great opener so far Carl. I had a goose come in silent running a couple of weeks ago. 3 shots and it flew away. 10 minutes later I got a call on my cell phone. I didn't answer. I'm hunting. Then I decided to see who it was. Local conservation officer. I decided to return his call. He went through the hoops to contact me. He answers and immediately asks me why Im shooting at sandhill cranes with an additude. I saw the cranes but they were 200 yards away and not in my firing lane. I explained I was shooting at a goose. His response was he did not see anything else in the sky. I told him he was below treeline and the cranes were high above the trees and that I don't shoot illegal birds. He finished without an apology but rather that I need to verify my background before firing. I've never met this CO in person but he could have acted a little more civil rather than assume I was shooting at an illegal bird.
 
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Want to know an even worse feeling? Nearly losing a #15 pound goose that is "dead". Thanksgiving morning while enjoying a nice wood duck and mallard shoot with my brother a nice flock of geese passed over head about 20 yards. It's been a few years since I've killed a goose so I pick a bird and pull the hook. Picture perfect rearward snap of the head followed by a back first splash 15 yards away behind a clump of grass on the oposite side of the channel. One flip of the wing post mortem was all she wrote. I quickly retrieved my aqua pod and made my way across to pick up my bird. Upon getting to where the bird fell he was gone. I checked the clump of grass and several other around it without luck. My brother soon joined me in my search and after a solid 15 minutes of pulling apart every clump of grass within a 25 yard radius I hear a yell saying "William I got him" what a relief.... then POW followed by "OK now I got him". This dead goose made it yearly 50 yards unseen in ankle deep water and required anot her shot to prevent his escape into the thick underbrush of the nearby woodline. Simply amazing what these birds are capable of.

All that aside I am extremely jealous of your great variety of birds and always look forward to your posts. Congratulations on 2 great days of hunting
 
Great hunt Carl you just harvested more ducks than i saw last year.
Hopefully the river will stay down and let us hunt in our late season.
 
Thanks for all the replies!
Too bad our 2-day split is over, this morning it's 34* with a light north wind & sunny, perfect conditions for us.
Its looking like this year is lining up to be another one of "the good ole days" years for us on the coast. When I talked to our biologist yesterday, they said during the pre-season aerial survey last week, they counted more ducks this year than in the last 12 years. Mostly gadwalls, followed by shovelers & teal, then scaup and then a mix of everything else.
Good news on the horizon too, two strong cold fronts are forecasted before we re-open next Saturday, with the second one clearing through on Thursday. Should make for another great weekend. I'm keeping an eye on a big vallisneria bed that the ducks haven't spread-out onto yet, that should change as more birds (and more divers) arrive with these two fronts.
 
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