1/28 – Hunted with Mac and his Dad, Big Mac, in hopes of a little puddle duck action. We went to my BW/BlackDuck/Wigeon/Gadwall spot – it had been holding literally hundreds of puddlers the day before, unmolested by any hunters. I put out a gorgeous spread and got my guys ready and……nothing. We had lots of bluebills come by, a few scoters and a lot of mergansers…but something happened and hte area was devoid of any concentration of birds. Maybe it was the light winds and bluebird sunny day – but I was and still am flabergasted. Conditions were perfect for that particular spot, even with the lack of clouds.
We held out all day watching and seeing tons of birds in the distance – just very few ducks that wanted to check us out. We did have three groups of gorgeous gadwall work us hard but never gave us a good clear shot before they eventually landed right out of shooting range.
Majorly disapointing guys – I hate to end the season on that type of note but I can honestly say I haad a great time in the blidn with y’all and I know you did the same.
1/27 – This morning I had a cancellation and went hunting in a pothole to try to kill a black duck. Normally there is very little pressure in the areas I hunt – the last weekend is a major exception. There were dozens of boats at the ramps and more expensive big pickups pulling expensive aluminum boats with pop-up blinds than I care to remember…I felt like I was at high rock lake or something!
Well, I had a few groups of teal work me but the guy about 400 yds away from me kept standing up, shining me with binoculars and flaring the birds. I also had a hot lone black work me HARD and was going to come straight in before some yahoo shot at her when she was 300 yds away. Cost me my blackduck of the day….
Highlight was seeing 5000+ redheads fly down the sound at 10am – gorgeous site. Captain Scott had a lone redhead come straight to him but a yahoo who was standing on the bow of his boat and adjusting decoys every 10 minutes cost him that bird….
Pretty day and good to just relax in the blind every once in a while.
1/26 – Blowing 35mph – we took the day off.
1/25 – Scott and I went up and hunted the Pamlico River with our good buddy Jay – we had a good early shoot, seeing probably 5000+ greenwings fly by. We got a ruddy and a few pretty greenwings – awesome hunt and a great time
1/24 – Captain Scott and I took 11 yr old Tye out this morning for a morning shoot – this guy lives and breaths hunting and was so excited he couldn’t stand it. We took him out to a good bluebill spot of ours and put the dekes out. The weather was perfect – low clouds and blowing 20 knots out of the NW.
From 6:45 to 9:30 we had bluebills and scoters pouring into the decoys – we had at least 10 groups of 20+ bluebills decoy perfectly and Tye put on a shooting expo for us – pumping shells through his Charles Daley Auto. Besides the bluebills, we had a few puddle ducks work us and lots of scoters – one group of 20+ came in, one of the larger groups of sctoers I’ve ever had decoy. Awesome time!
Tye with 1 of his two bluebills:
While we were retreiving a couple birds from a big group of bluebills that we pounded, we had a criple paddle off. When we went to get it, five minutes later, we found a black-backed seagull sitting over the carcass. This is what a seagull can do to a cripple in less than 10 minutes!
