Most ducks I've ever seen

Well, I'm not sure what to say about our hunt today. The day started-out with about 700 Ducks (not exaggerating) land on the pond directly in front of us before legal shooting time. Once we were allowed to shoot, we probably shouldn't have since we couldn't hit anything all day long. After 2 1/2 hours of shooting, you might assume that we got our limits; However, we only came home with nine ducks. We finally ran out of shells. When I say ran out, I mean we shot 65 shells.

After about halfway through this fiasco, our shooting was so bad that Gunner stopped being irritated with us for missing, and didn't even bother to pay attention when we shot.

I guess our wives are again absolutely right in that we need to practice our shooting. To that end, we both agree that we will shoot lots more sporting clays over the next year.

While we are both immensely embarrassed at our shooting performance, even that cannot overshadow the spectacle that we were lucky enough to witness. It is truly hard to describe what we saw with accuracy. I hope the pictures will do it a little bit of justice.

Gunner did a very good job today, staying steady through all of the morning activity of ducks landing when we couldn't shoot. He also remained steady at the beginning of the morning as we were shooting and missing, then it became really easy for him to stay steady because he was operating under the assumption that we would miss every shot! He had to pick up a couple very long cripples, and one long blind through open water, but everything else were fairly simple retrieves for him.

We stopped to thank the landowner and ask permission to hunt there again tomorrow, and it was granted. We are now on our way back to the hotel to pick up Winnie and Maggie and continue North to the new pheasant grounds we scouted yesterday. We are hoping to be back to this area with enough time left for a goose hunt this evening, but I'm not sure that is going to materialize.

After skipping dinner last night because we were both too tired to eat, I am really looking forward to eating a sandwich in the truck while we drive to the pheasant hunting location.

PS- In other news, the brakes on the truck are again working properly. My thumb is painful but I'm still in stable condition.

So far on this trip our occupations have included: hunter, mechanic, doctor, dog trainer, salesman (schmoozing landowners to get permission to hunt) chef, and pack mules (waterfowl hunting requires one to carry a lot of gear).