Just got back Tues night from ND, trip was okay but the weather really put a damper on the success.
We scouted Sat afternoon when we got there, found a great field several hundred honkers and a good # of mallards. Our anticipation for an awesome shoot Sun morning was crushed when we awoke to fog so dense you could cut it with a knife. Without GPS I never would have found the field, not that it mattered, the fog didn’t break until late morning after everything was done flying. We heard A LOT of geese and ducks all around us but only were quick enough on 2 mallards that gave us a long enough look to knock them down. I was calling all morning trying to let all the birds we could hear know where we were but we only caught glimpses of a few birds.
Sun night we hit a slough with a good # of ducks, we snuck up to it and gently spooked’em out tossed out a few dekes and they just never came back.
Mon we hit the same field again since we didn’t educate anything Sun morning. We were greeted by mist but much better visibility….we were on the spot again feathers and droppings everywhere but nothing wanted to finish. We had 1 flock of lessers get all tipsy for us and we thought they were going to drop right on top of us but we made the cardinal sin of letting them “come around 1 last time”….they never did.
It started raining harder about 10:15 so I got the truck and we got out of the field with just a snow, a honker and a couple mallards.
Mon afternoon in the steady rain we hit a larger body of water that had a lot of divers on it and we had a a good time, we shot 3 of the 4 bills we could have and sat and watched small flocks of bills work the dekes all afternoon, we did bag a nice buff, young drake redhead and a teal. Of course every time I went out to get something we knocked down we would see something OTHER than bills so there were some missed opportunities on cans, buffs and goldeneyes. We also saw a bunch of snows drop in to the lake in several big flights(500-1000 birds each) so that was fun to see. Finally we were soaked to the bone and decided to fill out our limit of bills and head out, only took about 5 minutes and the 4th one was down. We picked up and headed back to dry out.
Unfortunately our trip was cut short by the blizzard they were talking about for Tues afternoon and Wed, we had planned on hunting through Wed AM but with the weather decided to bail Tues morning and head home. From the sounds of it we made the right call it got nasty up there.
I hope to try and make it back out there again this year but who knows. The results were lackluster but we had a great time and that is what matters most.
