Andrew Schaefer
Active member
On Monday evening I went for a quick scout and found a pile of mallards hanging out in the back of a small cove. I texted my coworker to see if he wanted to join for a quick before work hunt the next morning and he said "where and when?". Normally, I would wait for birds to leave for the feed field, then go in and set up to catch them as they filter back, but, it's the last week of the season, and near as I can tell, the ducks on the reservoir aren't very loyal to one roosting/loafing site as in other places. We get a lot of wind around here, and the birds seem to change location in accordance with the wind direction and intensity.
So we got to the spot about an hour ahead of shooting time and bumped the birds out of the hole, to set up. There were even a few Canadas in there by the sounds of it, which was surprising to me, given the size of the pocket. Even when we were setting out decoys, we could hear ducks moving around and splashing down around us. Shooting time came, and we had a lot of mallards working the spot, but they just didn't want to commit too much. I could talk single drakes (pairing season?) into coming in, but we didn't finish anything more than pairs at one time. I also lost my jerk cord on the last hunt I went on, I think I pretty much just left it out there, which is weird, and I don't like spinners this late in the season, so we were hunting without motion on the water. Luckily there were a few gadwalls around, and they came right in. My partner and I wound up calling it a morning at 8:30 with 6 mallards and 4 gadwalls in the bag. My coworker grew up in Southwest Kansas, and had tried duck hunting a couple of times unsuccessfully in the past. I was happy that I could put him on a successful hunt. He's got a boy in high school that's been really interested in duck hunting, so I'm hoping to get something lined up for Saturday morning for them. Unfortunately, I've got work meetings and such scheduled until Friday afternoon, so scouting will have to be last minute. Here' a picture of my take for the morning (3 mallards and 3 gadwalls).
So we got to the spot about an hour ahead of shooting time and bumped the birds out of the hole, to set up. There were even a few Canadas in there by the sounds of it, which was surprising to me, given the size of the pocket. Even when we were setting out decoys, we could hear ducks moving around and splashing down around us. Shooting time came, and we had a lot of mallards working the spot, but they just didn't want to commit too much. I could talk single drakes (pairing season?) into coming in, but we didn't finish anything more than pairs at one time. I also lost my jerk cord on the last hunt I went on, I think I pretty much just left it out there, which is weird, and I don't like spinners this late in the season, so we were hunting without motion on the water. Luckily there were a few gadwalls around, and they came right in. My partner and I wound up calling it a morning at 8:30 with 6 mallards and 4 gadwalls in the bag. My coworker grew up in Southwest Kansas, and had tried duck hunting a couple of times unsuccessfully in the past. I was happy that I could put him on a successful hunt. He's got a boy in high school that's been really interested in duck hunting, so I'm hoping to get something lined up for Saturday morning for them. Unfortunately, I've got work meetings and such scheduled until Friday afternoon, so scouting will have to be last minute. Here' a picture of my take for the morning (3 mallards and 3 gadwalls).
