Thursday, November 22, 2007

thanksgiving hunt


(click pics to make larger)

so for as long as ive been a duck hunter ive wanted to make it a tradition to hunt on thanksgiving morning. well after three years of begging and badgering leah finally let me go.(she has no idea the slippery slope she has started down.) two mins before "safe light" i had 5 mottleds buzz my head and land in my decoys. they dabbled around and the whole time I was saying to myself, "please stay, please stay" and after about a min. they got up and flew away. meanwhile, i could hear folks blasting away in the distance. while i was waiting for my next ducks the largest bobcat ive ever seen walked around on the shoreline. unfortunately, it was two dark to get a pic. then a few mins later i looked up and saw two bucks staring me down maybe 25 yards away. they didnt seem to be phased by the man with the gun sitting in the lake grunting at them in order to get them to look at his camera. not the best pic in the world but it is something. by 7:30am i had these two teal (one young drake and a hen). ten mins later i had two more come in. i got greedy and went after the drake (full plume) thinking that i might pick up the hen on the second shot which was a much closer and better shot. well i took two shots at the drake and flat out missed. live and learn! 30 mins later i dropped a mottled and he got up and waddled into the brush. after looking for him for about 20 mins i finally gave up. saw a few more ducks but nothing within range. had a blast!

6 comments:

NoGoodGuitarPicker said...

Looks like your holiday hunt was a bit more productive than ours. Nice birds.

If you ever want the ducks without the gators to deal with, come on up Idaho way!

oldfatslow said...

I love shooting teal. They are a lot of fun. Glad you didn't get skunked. It's always neat the rest of the wildlife that can wander near you in the blind.

It's SheWhoMustBeObeyed's fault that I even got into duck hunting, but I couldn't get her to budge on hunting yesterday or today. You have a good wife.

Tomorrow I'm first pick at the wildlife management area. Hopefully, the little front that's coming through will bring some new, stupid ducks.

Good hunting to you. See you in the marsh.

ofs

oldfatslow said...

BTW, if you are not already a member, you might consider joining United Waterfowlers of Florida. They are an advocacy group for duck hunters. It's $25 well spent.

http://www.unitedwaterfowlersfl.org/

ofs

vanckirby said...

yes, a very good group. i have a link to them on the side of the blog.

vanckirby said...

NoGoodGuitarPicker, i would love to come out there and hunt some day!

Richard Pearson said...

man, deer! wow what a day!