Hoy7 Hunting Team: October 2015

Every time I go hunting I learn something, or I should have learned something but am too stupid to realize what the lesson was.

Opening day was going to be glorious, I did my due diligence and scouted the day before. I had a boat blind and could head out on Round Lake, which was flooded with wigeon and hunt where the others couldn't or wouldn't. I scouted all of the lakes but Round was by far the most promising.

I woke up a 3am and was at the ramp two hours before shooting, with a ten minute boat ride it left me with plenty of time to set up in the rice. I did not however bank on all of the parking being full, apparently Rocky showed up at 1:30 and there were already four boats out. I cut my loses and headed to Anderson, I saw a few mallards and geese there the day before.

Only one truck in the lot, it was a good omen. There were however headlamps that would turn on only as I closed in on each spot. The Point, Full, The Blind, Full, the reeds way down at the end, also full. I resorted to the only other place that I had seen ducks on my scouting trip, the little cove on the south side of the lake. I set out my spread and still had a cozy 20 minutes before shooting. The blind was up and I was ready to slay. In the early light I had a few very small divers come in but I was waiting for greenie, things were looking great..

This is where the lesson part should have happened, Bob D would have picked it out immediately. The sun was up now and I could finally see a little. While my blind completely hid Peat and I inside, it didn't actually look like anything around it. After seeing a few pictures of people shooting limits behind some of the most obvious looking blinds in history, I had convinced myself that simply being out of sight was enough. That being said, I spent all of opening morning watching mallards, wigeon and geese land short of shootable range.

I fired off two shots throughout the day and left empty handed, for it is better to have shotten and missed than to have never shotten at all. I saw on facebook that a few locals shot 35 birds in 35 minutes on Round, well they didn't get to sit in a badass boat blind and I did.

Nothing to see here.

Peat has his own door, the only one on the boat.

I headed out again on Monday, no scouting, but I could finally hunt that rice area at Round Lake because everyone would be at work. My buddy Nick came out with me, you may remember him from a post last year. Maybe I didn't post, but rest assured that he did go out. We motored out and set up in the thick stuff, the blind was up and the flight was on. Piles of birds headed out, but nobody gave us a look. We spent the rest of the morning experimenting and moving around, but to no avail.

Two fools.

With the front of the blind down and the motor up, it still looks awesome.

Slow day.

So my experiences thus far had led me to one conclusion. The local ducks wanted nothing to do with decoys, and were sticking to open water. Everyone else must be sky blasting and my blind was still awesome. I headed out on Anderson and nestled the boat against some pilings near the east end. I had a great looking spread, wind at my back, motion in the decoys. Things were looking up. I didn't see nearly as many ducks, but the result was 100% the same. Nothing would fly by, nothing would flare, nothing would get close enough to flare.

So after another very slow, cold morning, I pulled my blocks and headed to the shore. I set up in some cat tails and put out a small spread of about a dozen blocks. It was clear skies and warm now, but there was a little wind. The ducks had stopped flying, except for very occasionally. I settled in for what was going to be a good nap. Suddenly I had trio of wigeon blowing through my spread and using the sun as cover as they dodged my misplaced shots. The first decoying birds of the season!

After a few looks from mallards, a drake wigeon dive bombed the spread, I used my fully automatic duck gun and dropped him stone cold with a single shot. Peat made the retrieve and I realized a lesson that was part of my original introduction to duck hunting. Make your blind look like everything around it.... Bob D.

I hung around for another hour and had a single large greenie land just to the left of my spread and swim off. A few minutes later a huge float plane landed in front of my spread and skimmed along the lake for awhile before heading off again.. My spread was really working now, man nor beast could tell I was there.