How were your openers? Mine was fun, but not as good as I had hoped.

My plan was to hit a saltwater flat at the meat of the tide. This meant hunting from about 10AM to 1PM (I thought). Well, when we were driving in I noticed one of the neighbors was already picking up his dekes at about and birds were still trying to land in his hole. So, I was already thinking I was an hour late, and we were.

I rushed my dad and buddy to get their stuff on, and we jumped on the trailer and got our set out as quickly as we could. I was right about being late as soon as we set the blocks down and sat down we started shooting. Flocks of widgeon, teal and pintails were coming in at about 5 minutes on center for the first half hour or so.

None of us had shot our guns since January last year, and it showed. It didn't help matters that we had a 25mph wind right in our face, I was trying to concentrate on getting teal which was a mistake. With that headwind, birds were coming into the dekes from about 7 to 9 o'clock and moving left to right after shooting. I must have missed those little buggers at least 15 times. The wind was so strong that I actually got some powder in my right eye, and it fouled my contact. Our wads were landing in the brush 40 yards behind us even when shooting at ducks 10' over the dekes. We missed a lot of birds, but had quite a few in hand after that little bit.

The pintail limit has raised to 2 each this year, and my spot was stacked with them. We did alright considering that they were in eclipse plumage, we got 4 drakes and one hen. We left one slot open in case we made an error on identification. After the initial flurry, which was really fun, it slowed down a lot. We had to sit through flock after flock of pintails backwinging over the decoys, and not being able to shoot them. About every 15 minutes or so we would have 10 to 20 of them work the dekes and come right in.

The widgeon would not come. They kept trading at about 150 yards out. The wind and waves were so strong that they could not see our decoys, and they certainly could not hear our whistles. We ended up a limit short, but really the blame is on our shooting. I did manage to talk a couple geese into the 4 floaters I had out. We each shot a box of shells, and only had to water swat one bird for a kill shot.

The pics:

Right off the bat, no time to hide, keep getting out more shells.



Constant pintails working the set. I took this picture with my point-n-click. There is no zoom on this picture, they were bucking the wind at 5 yards all day long.



I was calling at a teal, but nothing could hear us in that weather. Note the white caps, I shipped water twice getting knocked over by waves moving the dekes.



Final hero shot. I have the goose and some pintails marinating for the grill tonight. Can't wait.

Good kill report RR

sounds like a pretty good opener.
we had a great little shoot.

BLING!

Nice job everyone!

We shot them up good.... No bling for us though! Sounded like WWIII for a while where we were at.

Keith

WOW!!! I've had consecutive single's that were banded, but never 3 in one day! Good job!!! Were the numbers close to each other? I know dudes who've wipes out flocks of banded honkers and all had bands, but they were all recently banded "birds of the year". I loved getting "jewelry" when I killed waterfowl. I need to look, but I've 22-25 bands hangin' on the mantle.

Still looking for my first band, unless you count the gull I found on an Oregon beach 30 years ago.

I have one band, unless you count all of the ones from the pigeons I've shot out of dairy barns.

Dogfish. They don't band merganzers. I would have thunk you'd have figured that out by now.

2 of them were fairly close but one was from Alaska banded in 07. Those honker family groups just always stay together it seems. I was back in RI this summer and found a flock with 18 of 22 birds banded.

andy are you shooting someones racing pigeons again?

Hey, they were mixed into the other rats with wings that were crapping all over the barns I shot in to get duck hunting access. Hang with a terrorist, die like one. That was a few years back.

I think I ended up shooting 480+ pigeons over a few years, plus my partner with about half that amount, and in all we got maybe 8 banded birds. Yes, I tracked the owners down and notified them that fluffy wouldn't be returning home. A few were pissed, but a most of these birds had not been seen by their owners for months or years, so they had indeed gone feral.

I've never got a band, except when I was looking at some old hunting pictures of me and my friends. I am holding a dead banded mallard, which I must have just cleaned and tossed the carcass.

So apparently I have killed a banded duck, but I do not have the band.

It wasn't opening day but this is what I got on a Sunday morning jump shoot.

Cool picture.

I scouted a spot for a cast-n-blast on Sunday morning. Just have to decide if I am brave enough to run the sled there in the dark.

Remember....... Without nuts, you're just another starving squirrel......

Go and hunt them.....

Keith