This morning, we hunted a WPA along the McClusky canal, just as it exits the Audubon NWR (National Wildlife Refuge). It was 40 degrees and 25mph wind. We saw a lot of ducks, but they were generally wary of coming within close proximity to the edges of the waterline. This is despite the fact that for the first part of the morning, we had 1 decoy set out - & later we pulled that too!
Although we officially had to count 3 ducks toward our daily limit, Jackson didn't retrieve any of them. 2 were wounded in the air, but healthy enough to fly a distance and direction that made them unable to be retrieved. The 3rd duck turned into a 150 yard blind retrieve against the wind and some other factors that were beyond the level of training Jackson has ever received. Truthfully, a MHR would have been able to retrieve the bird - & Jax made a great effort to do it - but he just doesn't have the training or experience to pull that one off... The only good news out of all this is that it saved Dan & I the time of cleaning & processing the birds.
We stopped hunting around 10:15, scouted enough to have a spot to hunt tomorrow, then back to the hotel for lunch. We're hunting pheasants tonight on the same WPA that we were at this morning (& same WPA we hunted phez yesterday). It's a big enough area, that we are hunting 3 different areas in these 3 hunts. This morning, we had 2 pheasants within shooting range - 1 flew by (surprised us so no shot) while we were hunting ducks & Jax flushed 1 (less than 2 yards from me - scared the crap out of me) while we were walking from our duck spot back to the truck.
Below is a picture of waterfowl we didn't shoot at today - this is a small portion of ~ 10,000 snow geese that were feeding in a field we drove-by while we were scouting for tomorrow's ducks.
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