Better Duck Hunting

Our duck hunting this morning was fairly slow and we started picking up decoys at 9 AM. Dan shot two female Ringneck ducks on three shots and I fired one shot at the same group but missed. The birds were flying at us and were shot when they were almost directly overhead, so both fell in the field behind us, making for easy retrieves for Maggie. As the birds were heading toward us I was tracking one and just as I got ready to pull the trigger, the bird was crushed by a shot from Dan that was just a little bit quicker than mine and I had to quickly adjust to a different bird - which I promptly missed.


There were around 60 ducks that came into the pond just as shooting time started before sunrise, but they landed on the other side and never gave us a shooting opportunity. They were mostly Shovelers, with some Ringneck ducks mixed in. We also had a group of 3 (Shovelers?) decoy in, but I accidentally flared them with movement. We didn't see them until they were almost on top of us and when Dan noticed them and alerted me to them. As I moved to drop the binoculars in my hand, they saw me & made a left turn to avoid us...

After getting back to the vehicle, we scouted for about an hour and checked out a spot that our neighbor Dave had suggested. There were a hundred+ Mallards and a few dozen Pintails there, so that is where we plan to hunt tomorrow morning. Right now we are heading out on our way to the Aberdeen area to hunt pheasants at the spot we had originally planned for yesterday morning. On the way, we are going to scout for the ducks around Lake Lily for a few minutes. With very little action this morning, there wasn't much to photograph. The picture below is our eating area in the house with two questionable characters sharing my lunch table.