Expert, with a Capital E

As previously mentioned by Bob D, we were heading for the Theater for some truly wild action.  Literally millions of birds were in and around the theater on Friday, and we wanted a piece of that action.  The plan was to get in, limit, and get out by 10:00 as we both had things to do after cleaning a pile of birds.

According to plan we walked in and set up a pretty big spread with almost 30 goose fakes and around a dozen mallards.  We settled into the existing blind that was still in tip top shape from last year and prepared for a killing fest.  With 25 minutes to spare, we just sat there and watched every bird on the lake flee from an air boat that was powered by twin straight piped monster truck engines.  In the final minutes before shooting time we witnessed many large trains of ducks and geese swimming single file through the spread looking for a little more distance from the air boat.

Once the time was right we had a few small birds come in, but nothing we were looking for was interested.  We passed the time and due to the short walk in I decided to go for a warm up walk fairly early.  I got the sneak on a nice drake widgeon and Peat got it out of the water for me.  This is an important part of the story because now we had to walk fairly often in order to keep him from freezing to death.

We had a few big flys but nothing was coming in at the Theater.  The occasional diver would swing by, or mallards would check us out only to land on open water.  It soon became time for another walk, as Peat was icing up in the sub 20 degree weather,  Bob and I had witnessed the bay to our immediate south load up throughout the morning so I headed that way.

As I approached the bay I kept a low profile and stuck my head over the embankment to look across at the other side.  As I looked out, a few hundred mallards exploded off the shore below me, catching me off guard. I pulled up, reminded myself that I am the expert and picked a single greenie that was going to come home with me.  As the comotion cleared from that single shot, I realized that there were six orange legs hanging out of the water within a few feet of each other.  The were no cripples, two dead greenies and a hen,

Peat made the triple retrieve, and I hid the birds near the car behind a rock.  I set a piece of steel that I was carrying for Bob on the rock, he likes to hang them on his cabin you know.  I then headed back and vaguely answered Bobs questions about the shot, not admitting to anything.  A little while later a henny came straight in, fresh off the triple kill I stood up confidence and pasted her with with the kind of authority you come to expect from a man who is capable of the triple kill.

We decided to pack it up and head back to the car.  I watched as Bob went for his piece of steel and saw the pile of trophy birds behind the rock, very satisfying,  I told him the story and he stacked them on top of my bag, the difference in weight made the final part of the journey exhausting.  This is the kind of stuff that separates the H7HT from the rest, banded birds, triple kills, and highly trained dogs. We are the best.

Who's a good boy?