Friday am ducks - better than expected!

 This morning we hunted at Goven's property next to the canal. The weather was about perfect - 30 degrees, 10-15 mph wind, partly cloudy. In total, we brought home 5 ducks: 1GW Teal, a hen & drake Mallard, & a hen & drake Gadwall.  Dan shot both Gadwall & the drake Mallard & I got the other 2. Jax made quick retrieves on all 5 & made it look easy. Part of his work included a (basic) blind & a trail (the hen gadwall got out of the water & tried to escape into the brush while he retrieved the drake). For the utter lack of training he's received in the last 5 years, he was amazing!

We both shot well, with the only missed opportunity being a Canada goose that Dan missed to start the day. As luck would have it, a trio of mallards dropped into the decoys just as I was changing batteries on the video camera, so I was only able to get 1 shot off at that group - or we likely would have bagged 1 additional bird. Dan also held fire on a mallard that was a 'layup' because he didn't want to scare off a larger group of birds that was also working our spread at the time. I wasn't in a position to see or shoot at that time because I was looking for my thermos that had gone MIA (Dan found it on our way out of the property later, laying at the fence we had to cross to access the property - it must have fallen out while we navigated that crossing in the morning).

After wrapping up the hunt at 11, we scouted our spots to hunt tomorrow and possibly the next day & tracked-down a landowner to ask permission (denied!) to hunt another spot. We got back to the hotel around 2 & had lunch & are now heading out with Both Winnie & Jax to hunt pheasants. Our hope/plan is to hunt 2 hours tonight, but that will depend on how much/long the dogs are able to go.