Duck Season in North Idaho

After my first "outing" concerning ducks, I decided to give it another go in earnest.  Shake off the skeletons of the potentially wounded duck and move on.  This time I was determined to TAKE MY TIME and plant my cheek on the stock.  So, there we were, paddling up the river at o'dark thirty to get to our secluded rice field (that airboats can't access.)  We got set up in plenty of time to make a makeshift blind and have a cup of coffee.  The first thing moving were teal and one came dodging and zooming into our pond before we could even blink.  Jason and I looked at each other like, "what should we do?"  Well, I couldn't see it, so he decided to jump up and try to get it taking off the water.  It didn't get up.  So now wha....BOOOM! 

Following that, no other ducks decided to fully make a landing.  But they'd come in and cup their wings and buzz us, then circle around and buzz us again, each time getting lower and lower.  I'll tell you, it was hard not to look up at them...I kept telling myself, "let THEM come into YOUR field of view Tom."  The first group was a bunch of mallards and I was able to pull my first duck of the year out of the sky!  Unfortunately, he was down but not out, so I had to run through thigh deep mud and catch up to him...talk about a workout!  I eventually tackled him and took care of it, simply dripping sweat.  But I was pretty excited, I hadn't held my own duck in a long time.  After slogging back to the blind, we both were able to do some shooting, and that led us back out to where I had just been, chasing after Jason's pintail.  Luckily he had the honors that time. 

This went on for awhile until I flight of three teal came buzzing through.  Now, it was amazing and I impressed myself, because I was able to hit one of those pretty little rockets and drop it at about 40 yards.  Then the trouble began.  I waded out there to get it, but after a lot of walking around and searching I turned up nada.  Jason came out to help look and our commotion on the water kept attracting more and more flights.  SO, whilst looking for the teal Jason said, "Tom, now!"  I was slightly confused but tracked his barrel at some nice mallards right above us.  Again, amazingly, I hit one heading out and it also fell like a sack...and boy, it was one of those big northern drakes.  Brilliant colors on those critters.  But I still needed to find the teal!  After about an hour, I was going to call it quits because I was getting plain worn out.  But we had found a little high spot in the marsh and took a break to pull our socks up off our toes, all the while talking about how THAT would be a good spot to set up.  Fortunately, on the way back, Jason was able to find a single feather on the water that led him to my teal...perfectly concealed in the flooded rice.  I could have hugged him when I finally sweated my way back into the blind, but contented myself with praise and admiring my first-ever teal.  Shortly after, Jason added another big drake to the bag and the flights slowed considerably, so we called it a day.  Seven ducks total in a couple hours!  I never realized what a pleasant feeling it is to haul a decoy bag out with a bunch of ducks on top, but from what Jason said, it was a nice feeling.  (See how that worked?  I pulled the bag without the birds.)

I forgot, Jason had a great shot at another drake

It's a nice spot before it freezes

Following that, we had a wonderful forecast of winter storm warnings, 20 mph north winds, and generally just nasty weather.  Unfortunately, it was AFTER the blasted time change, so rising at 0300 was in order.  Luckily it was Jason's turn to drive, so I was able to focus on coffee on the 45 minute drive down there.  This time we were going to set up on that little rise in the swamp and just hunker with minimal decoys...trusting the birds to just want to be there.  Well, while we were mucking our way through the thigh deep swamp and rice at four thirty in the morning we jumped HUNDREDS of birds off our spot!!  I don't even know how to describe the sound of flapping wings, quacking, feather-on-feather noise, and the rush of wind as the invisible birds came off the water.  Excited, we set up and watched the piles burning on the far hill in front of us.  Then the forecast proved to be false and the sky opened up into a relative blue, the fog dissipated, and all the birds that went by were high.  But boy the birds!  Flocks of hundreds, separated in little groups of ten or more came over in droves.  We had a couple come in low, but for some reason neither one of us could shoot worth a darn...I think we were in awe of the numbers we were seeing.  Our saving grace came in with three widgeon (wigeon....they are both technically correct, but I'm thinking I like it with a "d" better.)  We each got one coming in and Jason tracked the third on the way out and changed her plans for her.  Three birds in five seconds, now that's the way to do it! 


Our "limit" for the day and my first widgeon!

Nothing much happened after that and we were getting downright cold.  Heck, I was walking through the swamp just to keep warm...doing pushups and squats on the high spot....and not gaining much warmth.  Since everything was flying high, we went on a walk to check out a slough we knew of.  That eventually led us about a mile from our decoys, but we got to explore some country and see what it all looked like, oh...and get warm! 

Our tiny island in the rice

 

That pile was GOING in the morning...it was the size of a house.  No kidding.  That hill was where I got my first-ever turkey last year.  Proving to be a swamp of firsts for me!




Kind of a classic photo

 

I like that time of morning in a swamp

  

Getting creative?


Sure enough, as soon as we got back to town around two, the weather moved in.  It started snowing, the clouds dropped, and it became perfectly ducky.  But, we had made a promise to be out by a certain time and we had already been late...so, it is what it is.

All in all, I've had better luck this season than I really ever have in all my weird years of duck hunting.  (Duck "educating" as I've come to call it.)

And we finally got our snow, so this weekend I focused on deer hunting.  I got into absolutely nothing, but Jason took a long paddle to another one of our duck spots, and sent me this!


We both love the idea of coming back in with a buck in the canoe.  (And no, to answer your question, he had a rifle with him too.) 


We're going back out there this weekend to see what we can get into...