Duck hunting is fun when...

[GaryD]

- You belong to a club where you step from dry land into a dry boat and from the dry boat into a warm box blind.

- You spot a lone drake wood duck screaming over the tree tops at about 100 feet and you drop him dead into the center of the hole to every one else's amazement.

- You walk out to the center of the hole to get your wood duck and several big greenheads ignore you and try to drop in the hole right in front of you. You know no one else will shoot with you in the hole, so while you still have the wood duck's neck between your thumb and forefinger you proceed to shoot your 870 from the hip, flopping the wood duck around with each pump, and kill 3 mallards. The first thing you hear is "hurry up and get out of the hole, we want to shoot too".

- shooting time came in at 6:30 AM and at 8:00 when no one had popped a cap, everyone else decided to take it in. At 8:30 AM you have already seen over 1,000 ducks come and go in the last 15 minutes and have 4 beside you wearing jewelry.

- its a bad weather day, cold with a freezing fog and there are only four of us in a hole that will handle 20 and about the time you can see 20 feet, ducks start coming in and just keep coming and coming until every square nch of water in sight is solid mallards and they are even walking around in the blinds. And no one shoots for the longest, we all just stare at all the ducks; they're thicker than snow geese or even blackbirds. Finally, someone says "get'em" and you try very hard to remember to just pick one out instead of just blasting away.

[FrontSight]

God Bless!!!

[Gbro]

Duck hunting is fun,
When,
You have a 10 year old in the boat that gets excited to even see a coot!
Or,
To watch the youngster try to hold still while a bird starts to decoy!
Or,
To listen to this youngster proudly relate the experience to others.

You know you have been Duck Hunting when,
You have to snap 3" snotcicles off your mustache.
You have to break 100 yards of ice to get back to the landing,
And you know that it works best to make a couple of passes by to start the process.
Your decoys have an 8" dia ice ring on them,
Goldeneyes make up 90% of your bag,
You know better than to lift your lower unit out of the water.
The #1 reason for staying out so long is the dread of picking up the Deek's

[remington master]

i have to agree with scrap5000 the only reason ducks are around is for us to eat.

[FrontSight]

Huh? I just meant "awesome" when I wrote "God Bless"

[hogdogs]

I am at home watching it on tv all comfy cozy in my slippers...
Brent

[Lavid2002]

you have the thermal socks with the lil pickets for the hand warmers. Cumfy toes : D
I love killin ducks : P

.....And geese
[IMG][/IMG]

P.S. Im better at killing waterfowl than I am at smiling lol

[LateNightFlight]

hehehe... good times!

And fun when you step in a hole and fill up your waders.

More fun when the labra-pup thinks this floundering means "play time!" and knocks you in for an extra drink. (When this dog was older, she always gave me a hard look when I missed. She would stare at me and then her mouth would open like she was going to say something. I would remind her that she can't shoot better - that she can't even hold a gun.)

And fun when a chessie pup is better at marking fantastically long falls than paying attention to, "No! No bird! Here! Here!," leading you to retrieve the retriever 300 yards away and return the bird to the rightful owner.

Fun when you're stranded over night because a knot works loose and the boat drifts away in deep bay water. (Not me, a buddy. Rescue came from a Coast Guard helicopter that searched blinds the morning after they went missing.)

Fun when you get turned around putting decoys out in the dark and fog - no matter which direction you go, the water only gets deeper. "How do I get back to the blind without swimming? Where is the blind? How did I get here?!"

Some history of ‘predicament water fowling’ really improves appreciation for the days you get to stroll out a gravel trail and settle into a comfy blind, without incident.

[Gbro]

I am at home watching it on tv all comfy cozy in my slippers...

Just goes to show, Some people just aren't Duck Hunters

And fun when you step in a hole and fill up your waders.

Or when you are pulling the boat out of the reeds and your waders are stuck in the mud and the boat pins you down neck deep! Been there done that!

And, Nice Honker Lavid!

[hogdogs]

Ain't it ironic? I am admittedly NOT a duck hunter but I see nothing wrong with chasing after dogs all night, wading across neck deep creeks just to exit the other side in 40 degrees with nothing but a longsleeve shirt and jeans to keep me warm. I think it is the sitting still waiting for the ducks to maybe arrive that turned me off from very young to duck hunting...
Brent

[hogdogs]

Lavid, where was that pic taken?
Brent

[Oneholewonder]

Duck hunting is memorable when:

1. You're 17, dumb and too broke to own a canoe so you and your buddies wade 2 miles through an ice covered waist deep channel to get to the pothole where the mallards and blacks are all dumping in. Everybody shoots a limit and on the way back your buddy rips his rubber waders breaking through the ice in the channel from his crotch to his soles and decides his only way out of the swamp is to swim out of his waders and walk back in stocking feet with the water temp below freezing and the air temp about 15 degrees! Your buddy lives to tell about it, doesn't loose any of his toes to frostbite and for the next 15 years the same group of guys hunt together (from canoes mind you) and we laugh our asses off everytime we paddle through the channel past the high ground where Kevin's waders are still hanging out!

2. A guy that's overweight and out of shape and who hardly duck hunts wades a mile into a duck swamp in below freezing temps with the family golden retriever that's also overweight and out of shape and has been hunting about three times in its life. The poor golden goes into hypothermic shock after a couple of hours because there's no high ground for it to get out of the freezing cold water. The out of shape owner, who can barely get around in the swamp himself decides there's no way he's going to be able to get himself and his dog out of the swamp so he breaks down in tears because he's decided he's going to drown his dog to save his own life. Meanwhile, my brother who was about 19 at the time, in great shape and knows the swamp like the back of his hand tells the owner, a complete stranger, to step aside and get himself out of the swamp while he saves his dog. My brother grabbed the 60 pound golden by the nape of the neck keeping his head above water and practically ran out of that swamp back to his truck where he fired up the truck, turned on the heat and wrapped the golden in hunting coats to warm it up. The idiot owner and his hunting partner ended up emerging from the swamp about an hour later. By this time my brother had revived the golden and warmed it's body temperature enough so it was out of hypothermic shock. The owner's dog survived just fine. He told his family about what my brother had done and his wife and kids stopped by our house to thank my brother and give him some gifts. Mercifully for the dog the wife "retired" the golden from waterfowling.

3. A long time hunting partner has a rare and inexcusable brain fart resulting in an accidental discharge and shoots the yoke off the canoe while on a late season duck hunt in sub freezing temps. Fortunately nobody is injured and the pellet holes in the bottom of the canoe aren't significant enough to keep us from paddling back to the launch safely.

4. When your hunting a river where beavers are working in sub freezing temps without a dog and one of your partners who stands 5'8" tall dumps a mallard in the spread and wades out to make the retrieve. He suddenly disappears beneath the surface of the water leaving only his "Jones Style" cap floating on the surface! There's a mad scramble by the three other members of the hunting party (all of whom are 6'2" or taller) to assist. The hunter in distress and his water filled chest waders and water logged shotgun are pulled from the water by two of the other three hunters and all is well. Turns out the beavers had dug a deep channel in the river right where Sean had stepped. Later Sean's "Jones" style cap that's still floating on the surface is fished out of the drink. The ball busting begins and for the next 20 years anytime Sean steps into deep water to throw the decs out or pick them up or to retrieve a downed duck he is reminded not to take a "hat popper"!

[deermaster]

its fun anytime, anywhere, in any weather.

[rem870hunter]

lavid is that brigantine behind you?

[troy_mclure]

i like jump hunting much more than blind hunting.

[Gbro]

Jump shooting along large creeks and small rivers is a blast.
We took along a blind man one time. He lost his sight in an accident and being in the canoe brought back pleasant memories from his days duck hunting. I tried to get him to try shooting but he just wasn't up to it. I told him he would likely outshoot me, as I have had shooters at the trap range claim they could shoot better than me blindfolded