Trip Recap & Thoughts

As of 2:45pm on Thursday, we are between KC and St. Louis with an expected ETA at Dan’s house around 3am. Christopher and I will get a few hours sleep, then finish our portion of the trip back home to Atglen.

Overall thoughts, in no particular order:

- ​Although 125,000 ducks is a lot to be present on a 14,000 acre property, we saw only a small fraction of that number & most of those were high flyers that were not huntable. 

- We had a good time; this being the first trip for Dan, Christopher, & me together. We’re already talking about how to work around his collegiate academic & baseball schedules to go somewhere again next fall/winter.

- Based on how the trip went, we think Dad will be happy with his decision to not come along this year. With every day being a very early wake up (3:30a was the norm), cold / ice most every day, & long walks (.5 -.75 mile walk each way daily), he likely would not have enjoyed much of it.

- Hunting pressure here is insane, with some days having 200-300 hunters on this property, all competing for locations and birds. 

- The inability (as a visiting hunter) to scout effectively made the best areas worthless to us (as we experienced on Wednesday).

- Overall we shot 13 ducks & 2 snow geese. Admittedly, we could / should have shot better & we did start taking more marginal shots as opportunities became more scarce.

- Moose was good for the whole trip. He could have been a little better with basic obedience, but didn’t do anything that caused any problems. He retrieved all the birds he should have, with only 1 wounded bird escaping all week; & that one wasn’t his fault (it was a Houdini duck that also escaped my vision, so I couldn’t help him). He dove head & shoulders under water a couple times going after wounded birds & grabbing a couple that as they tried to get away.

-We found that after we put a towel or a pad in his mutt hut, he was a lot more comfortable & appropriately stayed in there. 

-We learned that my boat is not safe for 3 people & their gear (it’s too small). I also see that although it is a low profile craft, it’s not really made to be a mud/shallow water boat. It functioned in that environment, but was not optimal.

- If we would ever come back to Missouri, it would not be to 4 Rivers. Someplace that would have a draw system to hunt fixed blind sites would be ok, but the draw system used at 4Rivers isn’t helpful to us. Also, the walk-in areas at 4Rivers were mostly very large expanses of shallow water with very sparce vegetation &/or willow trees that didn’t look like it would make for good hunting.

- We timed the migration very well this year, but the weather was quite cold and caused some difficulties each day.

Thursday - Final Day

​Based on the lack of huntable birds / our success rates, we decided to head for home after this morning’s hunt. 

Today was very cold (16 degrees at sunrise & 15mph wind). With that wind, the lake was open when we arrived, but began to ice over around sunrise & didn’t begin to recede by 0930 when we called it a day. It took several visits into the decoys through the early am to keep the ice from becoming a problem. It was really cool seeing the moon over the decoys early in the am.

We had a couple shooting opportunities & killed 2 hens - a mallard & redhead. We also missed an easy pair. The hen mallard was part of a group of 10-12 & I called the shot prematurely (2 were landing while the rest were circling - I should have let them land & wait to call it when the bigger group was committed). This limited our shooting only to those 2 birds…

Moose was good through the am and didn’t seem to mind that the water froze on his coat within a minute of exiting the water.

Wednesday Evening

​after dropping the boat at the house and grabbing a quick lunch, we headed back out to pool 19, where we have walked in several other days. We were set up and hunting for the last two hours of daylight and again have zero birds to show for our effort. We did have one shooting opportunity, I’ll be at a marginal one, where all three of us took a poke at a single shoveler that was on the edge of being in range. It escaped without us cutting a feather.

Discussion has turned to a decision of continuing the trip for the original planned duration (thru Sat), or cutting things off early due to lack of shooting opportunities. Tomorrow morning will probably be the determining factor in that decision.

A silver lining in the lack of shooting is that it’s leaving time to take pictures, and despite our frustration with the hunting, we are having a good time together. Despite the lack of physical exertion, moose is still making sure to get plenty of rest!

Wednesday AM Draw

On ​Tuesday afternoon we got the trailer taillights rewired & everything made roadworthy again. As you can see below, Dan was very proud!

We tried our luck (& were successful) at the daily drawing on Wednesday. We drew the 4th choice (out of ~45 groups). Unfortunately, this area doesn’t have blind sites; they award an allotted number of groups in each small area (~1000 acres each). With not knowing the area, when we boated in at 5am, the spot we picked turned out to not be very good - no shooting opportunities and we left at 1030. Although the report is a lot of ducks on this conservation area, it’s not resulting in many hunt able birds near us. There was some shooting in our Pool, but not much - so although our spot wasn’t great, it likely didn’t matter today.

Good Day For Taking Pictures

For the second consecutive day, we have been able to conserve ammo.

We got into our intended spot in Pool 19 on time & made fairly quick work of breaking the ice necessary to set our spread. We were set up & ready well before shooting time, but with temps in the mid 20’s nothing was flying early. 

As the morning progressed, our day consisted of watching thousands of birds  (snows & ducks) flying high overhead & re-breaking the ice to keep our hole open. About 0930 the sun and rising temps opened it for good. Our spread looked great & we had the only open water around, but with nothing at all flying from 9-1130, we called it a day without coming close to firing a shot.

We did have some good discussions & I remembered to take some pics, so that is going to be the main post for today. 

This afternoon we’re going to fix the trailer lights that were ripped off/broke on the drive out here & I have a couple meetings. Tomorrow we’re planning to go to the draw (to try to get a choice spot) & use Pool 19 as our backup plan. Overnight temps are forecasted in the upper 20’s, so we’re hoping that the ice is minimal tomorrow.

Monday Afternoon Bust

​We hunted Flight Lake conservation area today from 2 30–5. There was a bit of ice, but nothing too bad. Temps were in the high 20’s and it was snowing most of the afternoon. 

We ended the day with no birds in the bag - but did see a beautiful group of ~50 Mallards work our spread and then land in the middle of the lake (out of range). 

A bit later (while I was on a work meeting & not hunting) part of that group took flight and came directly over Dan & Christopher - neither was able to bring down any of them though. Tomorrow we’re headed back to where we hunted yesterday. Overnight lows are forecasted in the low 20’s, so ice will likely be a problem…

Sunday Evening

​No additional shooting this afternoon (some of our group might have fallen asleep) but we did take a couple pics:

Sunday Morning

​We had a good morning today, with a total of 5 ducks (2 drake GWTeal, a drake Gadwall, & a hen and a drake Mallard) and 2 snow geese (1 of which Christopher turned & called all the way in for him & Dan to shoot together, & the other he shot in his own). We had 1-2 doz ducks decoy into the spread in the 15min before legal shooting time, which was cool, but a little frustrating too. Our shooting has been much better today, with only 1 bird escaping. We did miss opportunities on several gadwall, as a group of 5 came in while we were all looking at another group of birds & I was the only one to see them in time to get off a shot.

Moose made a great retrieve on the drake mallard, going 300+ yards out into the lake to get it & then diving after it twice, following it underwater. I guess the underwater playing with AJ in the pool this summer paid off!

He also found the Canvasback that we shot yesterday (which turned out to be a redhead-they look similar, so an easy mistake to make) very alive along the bank! 

We battled ice in the early am & had to pick up & move the spread to a windier spot to keep it from getting iced-in, but after 10am the combo of 10-16 mph wind & sun warming things up some is keeping our spot from refreezing. 

Tonight’s forecast is for 23 degrees, so we’re staying out until 5p when shooting ends, in hopes of good bird activity in the last hour & we’ll take off tomorrow am to let the ice melt a little (hopefully) before doing an afternoon hunt tomorrow. Also a 50% chance of snow tomorrow afternoon, so potential for another good day (if the ice doesn’t mess with us too much).

I’ll likely add a quick post later tonight. If not it will be tomorrow evening, after we wrap up that hunt. 

First Day of Hunting - Sat

​Things ended up working out just fine, but not according to our original plan. When we arrived at our planned spot at Flight Lake, we found that there were so many people, we could not hunt. We quickly change plans and went to pool 20 on the east edge of 4Rivers. We walked in & grabbed a spot on the lake edge in a stand of willows and buttonbush. It rained off & on all morning, so everything was soaked by the end of the hunt.

Although the morning started slow (no shooting for the first hour & 15 minutes) we ended the day with 6 birds in the bag; it should have been more, but our shooting was far below average for us. Most of the birds worked to Dan and Christopher‘s side of our gun line (limiting my shooting opportunities & giving me a convenient excuse here), we counted 18 birds well within shooting range for the day with them coming in mostly pairs and no group more than 4.

We finished with all drakes: 5 GW Teal & 1 Canvasback, but we were not able to recover the Can. We missed Mallards & Ring Neck ducks, as well as more teal & the other Cans (a group of 4 of them came in together).

Despite packing up at 11:15a & being steadily busy all afternoon & evening,  it’s 8:20pm and I’m just posting now & then getting to bed. We headed back to the same area (Pool 20) tomorrow. 

Scouting Day 11/28

​I am going to keep this post brief and stick to the facts because my brain isn’t working at full capacity, having been without sleep for over 36 hours. Christopher is in the same timeframe as me and Dan is well over 30 hours. Moose is the only one who is well rested!

 We got a good bit of scouting done today and the reports are that there are over 65,000 ducks on the conservation area property (a little over 14,000 acres in total). That being said, there is also a whole lot of hunting pressure and other hunters for us to compete-with for getting favorable blind sites. Water levels are lower than normal, which could help (concentrate birds) or hurt (cause them to keep flying South and bypass this spot).

We also found a smaller area (Flight Lame C.A.) nearby and are planning to hunt that tomorrow morning. Forecast for tomorrow is a high of 42 with wind and rain through the day and then getting cold tomorrow night, into the low 20s.

After grabbing a quick & early dinner, we got settled into our rental house. We didn’t get everything put away and organized, but did get enough done to be functional for tomorrow. Here are a couple snapshots from the house.