Late Duck Season Made Up for Poor Season
Bill Cooper
2/2/13
Another duck season has come and gone. It will go down in the annals of my duck hunting memory as one of the worst and best duck seasons I have ever had in my forty years of duck hunting.
Duck hunter hopes started high late last summer as reports poured in from teh Northern breeding grounds. Ducks numbers were the highest they had ever been since records were first kept in 1952. I, along with thousands of other duck hunters, was elated with teh notion of millions of ducks coming down teh flyways.
I made my preparations early, so that I would be ultra-prepared when the duck season rolled around in November. I cleaned my shotgun again, bought a new choke for it, as well as a case of high dollar loads that were sure to blast ducks out of the sky. I tuned my bot motor, cleaned the boat from stem to stern, touched up the camo paint, and purchased new batteries. I also picked up 4 dozen new decoys, brightly colored canvasbacks and lifelike bluebills. Combined with the decoys I already had, I felt convinced I could fool any duck that came my way.
Full of anticipation, I checked my decoy set one more time as I settled in for my first morning of duck hunting during the 2012 season. The decoys bobbed it the slight chop created by a northwest wind. My cell phone clock indicated that shooting hours would start in one hour.
I star gazed to pass the early morning time. The North star shined brighter than ever. A falling star burned its way into the earth’s atmosphere, only to fade out almost as fast as it had entered.
I fully expected to hear the whistling wings of thousands of ducks well before first light. It didn’t happen.
Shooting hours came and went. No ducks. None. I always killed ducks at my spot. My heart sank along with my confidence in the reports of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Five trips later, I had harvested a grand total of two ducks. Normally I would have had a couple dozen ducks from five trips. The expected grand migration simply did not happen at my duck hunting spot.
A few phone calls to other duck hunters and some browsing on the web gave me answers. The weather had been unseasonably warm and ducks were in a major holding pattern along the U.S. and Canada border. And when temperatures did drop enough to push ducks down the flyway, most ducks migrated through Missouri in a few major flight days. That is the days with bluebird skies and a nice tailwind. They didn’t stop for long and continued south, as if to make up for time lost loitering up North.
Duck season came and went and I took a total of two ducks for the entire season, my worst total on record.
Not to be outdone by ducks, I began researching other possibilities. The South zone of Missouri stayed open until January 20 for duck season. I hit the Web again and soon came up with a promising outfitter in southeast Missouri called IYF (In Your Face) Outfitters. That sounded like my kind of operation.
I contacted owner Perry May. We quickly hit it off and set a date for me to arrive.
The night I drove down, a snow storm put the damper on my hopes. I battled road conditions for the last 50 miles of the trip, trying to stay on the highway.
The comforts of IYF Lodge were a wonderful sight. I spent the evening lamenting my duck hunting luck with May and other hunters at the lodge.
“We will change your luck tomorrow,” May announced with a convincing grin.
Smells of bacon and coffee wafted through the lodge early the next morning. Breakfast was ready.
I panicked when I looked at my watch. It was 6:30 a.m. We should have been in blinds already.
Not so, according to May. “A lot of water froze last night,” he stated. “Things will be different today. We will give it some time to warm up. We will leave here at 9 a.m. sharp.”
I knew I was in for something different, but wasn’t sure I was going to like it. After a 45 minute drive to the hunting area, I had begun not to like the situation. We had wasted precious time.
As we approached flooded rice fields, I could see ducks in every direction. I knew we should have been there earlier.
May stopped the truck and broke a pair of binoculars. He studied intently while each hunter made their recommendations know about which way we should go. May insisted that we be patient. “I don’t want to make a hasty decision,” he quipped. “Let’s look a couple more spots.”
An hour later May made an announcement. “We are going to the west pit blind. There is a pocket of open water in front of it and the birds will work it once we get our decoys out.”
All four of us hunters could see dark clouds, that means thousands, of ducks going down in a flooded rice field 400 yards away. Why weren’t we going there?
May delivered us and all our gear to the blind with a Ranger, slipping and sliding in the slim, black mud of the rice field.
May hid the Ranger, threw out a couple dozen decoys and announced that every one should get ready. I had my doubts.
May blew his duck call to the tune of: ‘ya’ll come over here’. In less than five minutes minutes, a flight of green head mallards locked their wings and pitched in, loosing altitude fast.
“Shoot ‘em,” May shouted. Birds tumbled at the report of shotguns.
“Boom,” May shouted. His black Lab bounded through the ice slush and retrieved teh first ducks of the day.
“Did ya get all that on film, Bill ?”, May asked.
“Yep, I did,” I replied. I had greed to film the entire first day of the hunt. I soon thought I had made a mistake as I watched flight after flight of pintails and mallards into the decoys. However, I made up for it over the next two most fabulous days of my duck hunting life waterfowling with IYF Outfitters of Southeast Missouri.
Perry May is now booking for snow goose hunts. The birds have poured into the rice fields by the tens of thousands. Contact May at: perry@iyfoutfitters.com or call 573-421-0093.
2/2/13
Another duck season has come and gone. It will go down in the annals of my duck hunting memory as one of the worst and best duck seasons I have ever had in my forty years of duck hunting.
Duck hunter hopes started high late last summer as reports poured in from teh Northern breeding grounds. Ducks numbers were the highest they had ever been since records were first kept in 1952. I, along with thousands of other duck hunters, was elated with teh notion of millions of ducks coming down teh flyways.
I made my preparations early, so that I would be ultra-prepared when the duck season rolled around in November. I cleaned my shotgun again, bought a new choke for it, as well as a case of high dollar loads that were sure to blast ducks out of the sky. I tuned my bot motor, cleaned the boat from stem to stern, touched up the camo paint, and purchased new batteries. I also picked up 4 dozen new decoys, brightly colored canvasbacks and lifelike bluebills. Combined with the decoys I already had, I felt convinced I could fool any duck that came my way.
Full of anticipation, I checked my decoy set one more time as I settled in for my first morning of duck hunting during the 2012 season. The decoys bobbed it the slight chop created by a northwest wind. My cell phone clock indicated that shooting hours would start in one hour.
I star gazed to pass the early morning time. The North star shined brighter than ever. A falling star burned its way into the earth’s atmosphere, only to fade out almost as fast as it had entered.
I fully expected to hear the whistling wings of thousands of ducks well before first light. It didn’t happen.
Shooting hours came and went. No ducks. None. I always killed ducks at my spot. My heart sank along with my confidence in the reports of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Five trips later, I had harvested a grand total of two ducks. Normally I would have had a couple dozen ducks from five trips. The expected grand migration simply did not happen at my duck hunting spot.
A few phone calls to other duck hunters and some browsing on the web gave me answers. The weather had been unseasonably warm and ducks were in a major holding pattern along the U.S. and Canada border. And when temperatures did drop enough to push ducks down the flyway, most ducks migrated through Missouri in a few major flight days. That is the days with bluebird skies and a nice tailwind. They didn’t stop for long and continued south, as if to make up for time lost loitering up North.
Duck season came and went and I took a total of two ducks for the entire season, my worst total on record.
Not to be outdone by ducks, I began researching other possibilities. The South zone of Missouri stayed open until January 20 for duck season. I hit the Web again and soon came up with a promising outfitter in southeast Missouri called IYF (In Your Face) Outfitters. That sounded like my kind of operation.
I contacted owner Perry May. We quickly hit it off and set a date for me to arrive.
The night I drove down, a snow storm put the damper on my hopes. I battled road conditions for the last 50 miles of the trip, trying to stay on the highway.
The comforts of IYF Lodge were a wonderful sight. I spent the evening lamenting my duck hunting luck with May and other hunters at the lodge.
“We will change your luck tomorrow,” May announced with a convincing grin.
Smells of bacon and coffee wafted through the lodge early the next morning. Breakfast was ready.
I panicked when I looked at my watch. It was 6:30 a.m. We should have been in blinds already.
Not so, according to May. “A lot of water froze last night,” he stated. “Things will be different today. We will give it some time to warm up. We will leave here at 9 a.m. sharp.”
I knew I was in for something different, but wasn’t sure I was going to like it. After a 45 minute drive to the hunting area, I had begun not to like the situation. We had wasted precious time.
As we approached flooded rice fields, I could see ducks in every direction. I knew we should have been there earlier.
May stopped the truck and broke a pair of binoculars. He studied intently while each hunter made their recommendations know about which way we should go. May insisted that we be patient. “I don’t want to make a hasty decision,” he quipped. “Let’s look a couple more spots.”
An hour later May made an announcement. “We are going to the west pit blind. There is a pocket of open water in front of it and the birds will work it once we get our decoys out.”
All four of us hunters could see dark clouds, that means thousands, of ducks going down in a flooded rice field 400 yards away. Why weren’t we going there?
May delivered us and all our gear to the blind with a Ranger, slipping and sliding in the slim, black mud of the rice field.
May hid the Ranger, threw out a couple dozen decoys and announced that every one should get ready. I had my doubts.
May blew his duck call to the tune of: ‘ya’ll come over here’. In less than five minutes minutes, a flight of green head mallards locked their wings and pitched in, loosing altitude fast.
“Shoot ‘em,” May shouted. Birds tumbled at the report of shotguns.
“Boom,” May shouted. His black Lab bounded through the ice slush and retrieved teh first ducks of the day.
“Did ya get all that on film, Bill ?”, May asked.
“Yep, I did,” I replied. I had greed to film the entire first day of the hunt. I soon thought I had made a mistake as I watched flight after flight of pintails and mallards into the decoys. However, I made up for it over the next two most fabulous days of my duck hunting life waterfowling with IYF Outfitters of Southeast Missouri.
Perry May is now booking for snow goose hunts. The birds have poured into the rice fields by the tens of thousands. Contact May at: perry@iyfoutfitters.com or call 573-421-0093.
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