Sunday Morning

This morning we hunted the WPA that we scouted yesterday that is about 15 miles north of Alexandria. We got a great show, getting to watch several hundred ducks fly all around us for the first 30 minutes of legal shooting time. With as many birds as were around us, we were not willing to take marginal crossing/passing shots, so we held our fire to wait for something to decoy in. Nothing did. We're not sure exactly why, but it could be attributed to the fact that our decoys were sitting in only 1 inch of water and there were clumps of mud from our walking around setting decoys sticking above the water everywhere, making the general area look unnatural. 

We did have a couple opportunities for easy shots when singles would land nearby or swim near enough to us, but again, we did not want to disturb 150 ducks in order to shoot one – so we didn't shoot.

After 30 minutes, we moved away from our decoys to a spot where we had seen many ducks land previously and that spot was also unproductive. We then moved another hundred yards down the shoreline with the same intent. That was again unproductive. In total, we hunted from 6:45–8:45 without firing a shot. That being said, we are not unhappy with the morning, as it was really fun being that close to so many ducks - hearing the air rip through their wings making it sound like fighter jets passing overhead is something you don't soon forget.

We've come to the realization & agreement that (like my golf game) the duck hunting this trip is going to be subpar. Because of that, we are going to concentrate mostly on pheasant hunting for the remainder of the trip. We will hunt ducks in spots close to our base of operations that have some chance of success (like yesterday), but will not spend much more time scouting for new areas.

Below are a couple more pictures of our sleeping accommodations. You can see that the dogs have each claimed a bed for themselves. The general set-up is that Winnie sleeps with Dan, Mag sleeps with me, and Jax sleeps in a bed by himself. Not what I would have predicted, but it seems to be working well...