Waterfowling

[NEhomer]

A slough that overflowed from the nearby river gave us great gunning a few years ago. Well this mild weather and melt filled it up again this year. I scouted this afternoon and put up a pair of blacks and a another pair I couldn't identify through the trees. This is a classic old former riverbed over gown with trees that the ducks flutter down into.

We have just tomorrow and Saturday here in MA and it's all over for the year. So I'll be setting out dekes and my surface breaker invention and likely gunning some ducks tomorrow while y'all are sleepin' in.

Deke's sitting on still water are a dead giveaway to late season birds and they will not set on motionless decoys. There are number of inventions but I made the simplest and most effective contraption a few years back. Started with an old fiberglass golf pin. I cut the bottom off a clear 2 liter soda bottle, drilled holes in it and then upside down, hose clamped the mouth of it it to the shaft. The shaft sticks down into the muck until the clear bottle is level with the surface of the water. It's bolted to an adjustable length spike and then black ice fishing Dacron attached to the rod completes it. I'll set dekes around the now invisible bottle and tug the string from my blind. The surface of the slough will ripple and the dekes will bob about as if the group was foraging around. It's such close quarters that I don't usually bother to call. That rippling water at first light is generally all it takes and they come dropping in.

....Gear's all packed, gotta run downstairs and put ammo together and off for some ZZZZZZZZZZZs.

 

[romeo212000]

Got a baby mojo teal spinning wing decoy. Should be good enough to pull most ducks in. I'll have to figure out something to extend the stake though.

 

[NEhomer]

yeah, spinning wing decoys work great. Mine broke and just when I considered replacing it, a bunch of States outlawed them.

The wind howled this morning from the Northwest. Made setting up a task and made the birds sit tight. Not a thing moving when suddenly as it happens in duck hunting, a black came dropping straight down toward me. That red dot sight I put on my 11-87 last year pointed him out and he folded dead.

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Nothing else moved for the next few hours so I left the spread. Returned for the last hour and a half. Sunset (legal closing) was 4:21 today. Never before has this happened in my life and never again I'm sure. You know, it's over. Five minutes left, it ain't happening. Two minutes.....4:21 hits my cell phone clock and holy shit, four mallards come fluttering through the trees. Two split off and two dropped in down the slough. In range but at the periphery. Dropped this drake mallard in literally the closing minute of legal light!

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So only two birds but no misses and I'll head back tomorrow morning to close out the season. This one's easy, the whole set-up's in place.

 

[NEhomer]

Notice the difference between these two photos.

This is a group of decoys:

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This is a group of ducks:

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[romeo212000]

Notice the difference between these two photos.

This is a group of decoys:

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This is a group of ducks:

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Wow, that's a great looking slough.