Took a break from working on the shop and the property today and headed out this morning with my boys for their first ever waterfowl hunt on the youth hunting day. Both boys have taken grouse, and Hunter got a deer last year, and was in the elk twice last year as well, but this was a new experience for them. So here is the obligatory start of the hunt pic.
Hunter wanted to use a 12ga, so I let him use my 935 semi-auto with 3" rounds, and Ryan chose the single shot 20.
About 250 yards into our trip the main shaft that drives the prop on our trolling motor decided to disconnect from the rest of the motor, dropping the prop in the middle of the river. Luckily it was shallow, and we recovered the prop, but the nature of the failure made the engine useless. Oh well, the GPS said it was only 8 miles to the take-out.
8 miles on the river shouldn't take that long, rowing, should it?
We head on down the river with a few fly-bys from our 6, and having two rookies in the front seat meant no shots. Hunter picked up right away that he would have to speed up his reaction time if he were to get some shots. After about an hour we pull over to call for coyotes, just for some change-up, as the birds hadn't started to move. Called for a bit, but nothing moved.
As soon as we get back to the boat and head down river 30 yards up jump 10 ducks of mixed heritage, and they set back down in a slough about 60 yards upstream. We head upstream in the boat, get out, make the stalk, and after 3 shots, NADA. Chalk it up to the first good shots they ever had (20 yards max) and never having shot ducks in the air.
The shooting scares up a flock of 12 geese in a neighboring field, and they decide to fly our way. I tell the boys to "not move a muscle and freeze", which the boys mistook me as saying "Point and yell at the geese headed our way". I had to laugh as the geese predictably flared well out of range. So we had a little talk.
Got them squared away, and we headed for the willows to see if any of the geese or ducks would come back, as there were a few ducks circling, really wanting to return to where we had jumped them. Sure enough one of the ducks swings back in and lands in one of the two sloughs off of the river. We leave Ryan in the bushes and tell him to watch for incoming while we make a stalk. We walk upstream, cut through the willows, and as Hunter steps from the brush, a drake Gadwall jumps up about 25 yards away. About 5 yards later, Hunter dumps the duck with authority, and it hits the water stone cold dead. Black Cloud #2 ammo did the job. A knuckle bump, and hug followed shortly thereafter. We were on the board! While the odometer said we had traveled 2 miles, the line of sight measurement to the take-out read 8 miles, still.
We head downstream a little more and run into two wood ducks in a side slough. Ryan's turn, and instead of cocking the hammer, he hits the action release button and the action opens on the single shot. I tell Hunter to shoot, he does, and knocks some feathers off the trailing bird, and I see it go a bit sideways. I tell the boys that we'll see that bird downstream, and 30 seconds later only one bird flies back upstream, but out of range.
We head downstream about a 1/4 mile, and sure enough out pops a wood duck hen from the brush about 20 yards away. Ryan cocks his gun, the bird jumps up, Ryan fires and hits it square, the bird drops and hits the water. The bird's head pops back up, and then jumps up again and after two shots Hunter dumps it in deep cover on the river's edge. The dog (aka me) chases after the bird and I find it dead. We counted this one for Ryan, as he did get a shot on it, while Hunter got an assist. Not bad teamwork for a 9 and a 12 year old. They were hitting a groove. Two down, and a few to go.
A bit further downriver I see a duck skimming the surface of the water, so I alert the boys. Both get to shoot as they each have one, and it is heading straight at the bow. It pops up, Ryan misses, Hunter misses, and Hunter connects! Hen widgeon hits the water, but the head is up, so I spin the driftboat around, and Hunter sluices the bird at about 40 yards ending the chase. They are connecting when they need to now. Three down. The odometer reads about 4 miles now and the good news is that we are now only 7 miles away from the take-out. Hmmmm....
We see some young ladies riding hosreback, thank them for spooking the duck to us, and then turn a corner runnning into about 40 geese, and an equal number of ducks. They get up way out of range.
A few more miles pass and we see a bunch of ducks get up on some straights where there was no cover for us what so ever. We realize we won't make it to the take-out in time for Ryan's soccer game, and call Momma for plan B.
Another mile downstream (getting the message here?) and I see a bunch of geese, maybe 12, at a bend in the river. We head to the left to allow us some cover from a log jam, and close the distance to about 40 yards. One goose way to the right busts us before we can get around the log jam, and the dozen geese we saw get up, taking the 100+ geese around the bend with them. Bummer. But as we near the corner I hear a "Honk" really close, compared to the 112+ geese honking on their way out of the neighborhood. I tell the boys to get ready, and hand Hunter the 12ga loaded up with goose loads.
We round the corner and 25 yards away, thanks to a high inside corner, are two geese. Ryan lets loose first as they start flapping, and shoots left. ( I was really glad to see my 9 year old's reaction time improving in the space of a few hours. He was catching on. We can always work on accuracy.) Hunter shoots at the goose on the right, following the ettiquette we had talked about, and it drops, but the head is up, then it dives. I tell both boys to reload, they do, and then I watch for the "skulking goose". About 10 seconds later I see a patch of white moving to our right at the end of a V-wake and the goose hugs the gravel bank. (So glad it wasn't grassy.) I point out the patch of white as I row towards the bank, and Ryan lets loose right on target, (No prompting needed to shoot, and well within range) but the 20 ga doesn't impress the goose too much. Hunter lets looses with a 3.5" bismuth round, and the goose is dead.
We head downriver another hour while Ryan takes a nap, and Hunter wakes Ryan up with a good 45 yards shot on a drake mallard, but even though the bird rolled and feathers flew, it kept on heading upstream at a good pace. Bummer.
A little while later we ran into our friend Rocket Red after a few phonecalls, and he helped in handing off Ryan to Momma so he could play for a bit in his soccer game.
Hunter and I headed on downstream after that, and while he had a shot at another duck, nothing else really presented a good shot.
8 hours on the water, 14.6 miles rowing in absolute frog water with the exception of about a mile of curves with a 3.1 mph current, we ended up with 3 ducks and a goose for two absolute wingshooting rookies. I could not be prouder of their accomplishments today. We had a bunch of laughs, told some off color jokes (fart jokes, etc), ate some junk food, and we even saw a beaver.
So here is what we got.
Unfortunately Ryan was at his soccer game so he didn't get in on the photo.
I must say that Rocket Red, was awesome today. He volunteered a turn-around for us, and picked up my wife as she looked for us at a bridge where we told her she could pick up Ryan to get to his soccer game. I owe you my thanks, a trip where I row, and a bottle of your favorite. Above and beyond the call of duty in my book.
My tears came when my back started to spasm a bit as I ran the boat back to our field after we got the blood washed out of it. The memories of the day's events helped to mitigate the pain.
Tomorrow we head after pheasants!
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