So-So Sunday

Today's hunting wasn't what we hoped it would be. We ended the morning around 11am, with 5 ducks. We were late getting set up, which cost us at least a few birds & as many as a bunch. Ice was a constant problem - causing some of our tardiness (some was just our negligence), continually icing-in our decoys, & preventing birds from landing within shooting range most of the time. With Teresa's slough being small-size water, it is prone to freezing quicker than large, open water (but that's what also makes it good hunting for decoying puddle ducks!). Temps were in the high 20's and the wind was light (5-10 mph).
We had a lot of birds trying to land with us as we set decoys & had more that did land in the decoys as we were working to get our hide set-up & guns loaded. By the time we were ready, it was 15 min after legal shooting time & we had scared all those birds away. Despite this, quite a few did come back a little later & generally decided to land about 75 yards up the bank from us. This made us decide to pick up and move there, as the factors visible in the daylight (like ice - which weren't apparent in the dark) let us know that we weren't going to get many birds to land directly in front of us. The exception to this was Dan's 1st bird (drake Gadwall) that he took cleanly with 1 shot.
After 20 min of changing spots, we were ready to hunt again. There were several other close-by pieces of open water & through the morning we took turns walking around them to jump ducks off those spots. A couple of those walks yielded jump shots, with Dan getting 2 more Gadwall on his walks & 1 Bluebill(?) that I jumped and sent his way while he stayed to guard our decoys. We didn't recover that one, since I had Jax with me & when we got back, the bird was barely alive but next to the ice shelf - so I didn't want to send him. The bird later dove and went under the ice, lost until things thaw... My 1 bird of the day was a drake Gadwall that decoyed-in while Dan was out returning the favor & flushing it my way. It was a clean, 1-shot kill that Jax easily picked up 25 yards away on the water. Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera rolling & it surprised me, offering only a snap shot to kill it - so no video of that one...
As bird activity slowed & ice continued to build-up, we decided to call it a day. We're going to do a little scouting this afternoon to make a final decision on a spot for tomorrow morning. Ice is going to get worse, as today's high is 25 and overnight low tonight will be 18. The temps aren't at all uncomfortable, but the ice they are causing is a complicating factor that ranges from annoying to very irritating, to dangerous...

I've been able to get some video (why else would I have that ridiculous thing on my head?) & hope to upload something tonight.