Capt. John
Active member
Hello everyone, I have not posted on here in quite some time due mainly to the birth of my second daughter five months ago. All my spare time is spent changing diapers it seems these days. But a pretty interesting thing happened here on our opening weekend two weeks ago. I guide for ducks here just enough to make my wife think its a job and then hunt for fun the rest of the time. I have the same client hunt the opener every year and we hunt the same blind way back in a brackish swamp every opener. Its become a great tradition and I look foward to it every year, we normally see lots of teal and gadwall and every once in a while a wayward diver or two. Well we were setting there midmorning when two ducks buzzed through and landed about 150 yards out from the deeks. I glassed them and to my amazement it was a pair of ruddy ducks! I've hunted the same swamp for 9 years and have only seen one other ruddy and that was on my way back to the ramp once. I realize most see these ducks as stupid and not very good to eat but I was still excited to see them. After about 20 minutes they swam right to us, My hunter Jack, was ready for them and so was Earl, my lab. Jack stood up and they flushed giving him a perfect flying cross shot, two shots later Earl got to retreive his first ruddys. I wish I could have shot them but I'm glad Jack got em if not me. He was so happy and so was I. I know most reading this wont see much merit in a couple of ruddy ducks but it was just one of those cool moments I will always remember. I got home that night and wouldn't you know it, Charlie Foulds had put an add on the site for a cork ruddy duck! I had to have it, It know sits on my gun cabinet by a picture of Jack just waiting for next years opener. I hope we can shoot a few over him sooner or later. Thanks for reading my story, heres a few pics of the ducks and the decoy.
John Ven Huizen
John Ven Huizen
