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Migration Days
Instead of being blessed with migrating mallards and big honkers we've had outbreaks of grass fires and 70 degree temperatures. The few ducks that have made it to our state have found dried up ponds and hunters surrounding what little water we have left in our lakes. The best hunts I've had this year have come on "Migration Days" which if you don't know are those 20-30 mph north wind and blue bird sky days. With a front coming after several days of south winds and warm temperatures I decided that tomorrow would be a day I just had to be in the field. I knew that the Dakotas and Nebraska were getting heavy snow which typically means the mallards are headed our way. I called fellow field expert Richard Davis and asked if he wanted to get out in the morning. Rich was game and also felt this front would push some new birds in. Boy were we ever right. He already had a buddy and mutual friend of mine (Mike) slated to go and my main hunting partner Colby (like the cheese) was ready to go so we had the cards set. We decided we'd all pile into Rich's Gatortrax with the new 35hp Hyperdrive and see what happened. We got to our final destination around 5 and got everything set up before shooting time. Shooting time came and went without a bird stirring. 10 minutes in we had a single greenwing teal slip in and land in the decoys. He was quickly added to the empty game strap. The skunk was lifted but where were the mallards?? Could we be wrong??? Could it be that the northern birds were holding strong in the corn fields and wouldn't grace us with their presence? How was it that 4 guys with many years of waterfowling experience between them could be so wrong about the quarry we chase with such obsession? In the first 30 minutes of shooting time we saw 3 good groups of mallards fly and dump in behind some trees. As every experience waterfowler knows you have to go where the birds want to be, so we decided to make a move. Upon arrival we flushed 300 mallards off of a tree lined point. We quickly redeployed our spread and got set up. Before Richard got back from hiding the boat we had 100 mallards drop into the dekes. Some will hate us for this but we let all 100 leave without firing a shot. I myself sometimes get a little caught up in the moment watching birds come in and just can't bring myself to shoot them after they've landed. I also wanted Richard to be able to shoot with the rest of the group. Richard got back in a hurry as he could see what was going down. For the next few hours we got to witness what every waterfowler dreams of. We had groups of anywhere from 4 to 200 drop right into our decoys. The thing that really told me it was a true migration day is the fact that we wouldn't see a duck for 30 minutes then all of a sudden you'd hear that one mean old hen sound off up in the stratosphere. The next thing you knew is those black dots would turn into mallards falling to the earth. We were on the X and they had nowhere else they wanted to be. We took turns shooting greenheads and finished our limit by 11. We had a small group of buffleheads come in and picked up our other 3 kickers needed for full limits. Mike also shot him an awesome drake buffy to go on the wall. The final bag was 20 mallard drakes, 2 bufflehead drakes, 1 bufflehead hen, 1 greenwing teal drake There is really nothing better than enjoying a great day afield with great friends, a good dog, and lots of mallards. This was one day I won't son forget. |
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