Trying Tapatalk for the first time...not sure about the view. Anyhoo...I set up my layout blind in some cover on the east side of the pond where the wind nearly always blows from the West. Bessie is not a good duck blind, but the mule deer love to bed beside her and the ducks go out of their way to land as far away from her on the pond as possible regardless of wind direction...so, it doesn’t work as a blind, but she’s going to help with the mulies I’m going to go after next week, and she is definitely helping divert ducks to the one spot on the pond I can hide. Last day of first split was a warm one with clear skies and an unusual, perfect NE wind. As I laid back looking at the way, way up there jetliners flying over, I saw two big ducks a mile high going east to west. I gave my loudest hail/comeback call and yanked the jerk rig a couple of times. The pair made a hard bank to the left, cupped on a wide left arc, and never flapped their wings as they lost altitude at a mind boggling rate...straight to the decoys making ripples at my 10:00. I’ve never seen a prettier approach that had ducks end right where I wanted them. They died. Twenty minutes later, I heard wings and made a few soft quacks and feeding chuckles and a minute later, I saw three circling. They figure 8’d a couple of times and dropped in at my 12:00. They died. Shortly after that, a group of GWT blew in from behind me and soared about 10 feet directly over my hide...They were on the water before I could flinch. I shot one of the hens as they flew up, as she was the only one that didn’t fly to my right. Legal was 5 minutes away, and I got up to gather my ducks. As I walked to get the one duck that fell on the edge of the water, a snipe busted out from under my feet, and I shot it after nearly shitting my waders.
It was a beautiful afternoon and about as good as I could have asked for with the hot weather and few, stale local birds that didn’t leave with the brief ice-up last week. About 10 minutes after the sunset picture, hundreds of Mallards/wigeon/GWT and BWT started pouring in in groups of 10-20. Don’t know where those ducks have been for the last week...maybe new ones traveling with the full moon.
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