Weekend Hunting

Last weekend was my last chance to duck hunt with Jacob this season. Justin couldn't go because he had his wisdom teeth cut out on Thursday. So Jacob and I hunted hard on two mornings. Early Saturday morning, they weren't flying in the area we were hunting. After an hour or so, we got in pirogues and went scouting. We found approximately 100 mallards on the water in flooded cutover oak brush. We shot a couple of times at ducks going away. I knocked one down, but Kate (the dog) could not find it. She was hampered by the thick brush and floating debris, so she couldn't systematically search the entire area as she normally does. We spent the rest of that morning scouting the area and cutting a trail into it with a machete so we could get back to it in the dark the next morning.

Sunday morning we jumped some ducks going in. Of course, it was still dark. Our plan was to set up and catch them coming back in to that spot. Only three came back before we left at 10 o'clock. I didn't have an opportunity, but Jacob shot and missed a couple of times. He's shooting a new gun, and hasn't got to shoot it enough at ducks to get the feel for it. We did see a lot of wood ducks flying past early in the morning. Fun to watch, but they weren't in range. It was a tough area to hunt. When the mallards were down in a spot, they weren't moving. And we couldn't move without great difficulty. And because of the brush, we couldn't spy ducks at a distance and slip in on them.

We've had a lot of more successful hunts, but it was great to be out with Jacob and at least seeing some ducks and getting to shoot a couple of times. Standing in thigh-deep water with Jacob, with Kate on her tree stand between us, while ducks fly up the river was a great way to spend a sunrise.

Bill Scurlock