Cold Morning Duck Hunt

I've been so focused on deer hunting for the last few months that I haven't spent much time duck hunting. This past week I planned to change that trend, and I invited a couple of my friends from work to come out and duck hunt with me at our lease. I had high hopes for our hunt because I have been seeing lots of ducks on the ponds this year, but with the recent Arctic air that moved into our area I wasn't sure if any of the birds would still be there. I figured they had either packed up and headed South or there would be more birds that had moved in from the North.

Just before we arrived at our hunting spot early Saturday morning the thermometer on my truck was reading 1 degree. There was no wind at all so I knew the pond would probably be completely frozen over and we would have to break ice to put the decoys out. And that we did. We busted ice, threw out a few decoys, and waited for legal shooting hours to arrive, which is 30 minutes before sunrise.

Once the clock ticked over to 7:08 and we could legally begin to shoot, the ducks began piling in. It was one of the best duck hunts I have ever been a part of, and by 8:00 the four of us had limited out! Here is a picture of the crew. From left to right: David Mackintosh, Justin Berndt, Lee Flannery, and myself.


This was quite a mixed bag of ducks with most of them being Widgeons and Gadwalls. We also saw some Pintails and a Redhead drake but we couldn't get a shot because they were too far out and wouldn't commit. There were also some Mallards that came in, and Lee shot the trophy bird of the morning by bagging his first Mallard drake.

It was an awesome time with some good friends! I can't think of a much better place to watch the sun come up and enjoy the immaculate handiwork of our Creator!

Here are a few more images from the weekend. Thanks to my friend Justin for the picture in my new blog header.