Monday ducks

First: Happy Birthday to Gunner! He turns 10 today and is enjoying (I hope) getting to relax at home. I decided that the combination of the pace of this trip and the fact that we have 3 other younger, qualified dogs pushed me to think that home was the right choice for him. I do look forward to hunting with him in the coming months closer to home!
Today, we hunted the 65 pond with moderate success. I thought it was really cool that on the day of Gunner's birthday, his son Jackson participated in his first duck hunting experience. On the other hand, this was breaking every bit of advice about the best way to introduce a young dog to real hunting...
We hunted until 11 and totaled 3 ducks: 2 drake Gadwall and 1 hen Shoveler. I shot the Gadwall and Dan got the Shoveler. Jackson retrieved my Gadwall as a marked double and did the retrieves perfectly, although he came out of his hut and ran a few yards before 're-sitting' himself. He was totally steady on Dan's duck, which made me very happy! It was warm (45 degrees at 6am) and calm all morning. Overall, there were a lot of ducks in our general vicinity, but not many in shooting range. As the morning progressed and ducks were landing nearby but not in our pond, Dan went for a walk and found 6 other potholes within walking distance. That explained where the ducks were going! With the warm weather and no wind, the ducks are not moving a lot, and with similar small potholes of water everywhere, the birds that are moving have a lot of choices of places to set down, so we need to make the most of the shooting opportunities we are going to get.

We used the Ghillie suits that we bought last year, with apparently solid success. I am interested to see who can find Dan in the photo below. I'm sure we all look forward to reading this comments section!