No Ducks on Monday

As we took stock of the spot we had to hunt, our day started out with more optimism than we had last night. The temps, the wind, our exquisite decoy spread (quite lifelike and realistic), & our proximity to the refuge area all combined to make us think that this could be a really good morning.  That optimism quickly faded, as the lack of avian activity was glaringly evident. We wrapped up our hunt at 9 AM without firing a shot - though we did have one missed opportunity on a single Mallard that surprised us, but didn’t stick around for a second pass over the decoys.

We did find a channel buoy that had washed away from it’s anchor point in the recent flooding & ended-up stuck in the woods. Knowing that would be someday cleaned-up & sent to the trash, we carried it out thinking that it might be a nice decoration somewhere in the future.  It was a good thing that we only had a couple hundred yard walk back to the truck, because the buoy weighed around 60 pounds. When combined with another 60 pounds of various hunting supplies, it made for a slightly strenuous walk - especially considering that it was up hill both ways...

 In other good news, the veterinary center performed another blood test on Winnie this morning & called us to say the results are very good. We picked her up & she has a clean bill of health, so we're going to take her out to hunt this afternoon. Speaking of this afternoon, after we get the necessary tasks completed at the hotel, we will are planning  to head out for an honest to goodness real afternoon of pheasant hunting. Stay tuned for tonight‘s update on that activity.