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So, I finished the blind up on Friday afternoon only to be informed that we had friends in town from SC visiting and we would be tied up eating some damn fine Portuguese food instead of hunting on Saturday. That was fine by me as my shoulder has been giving me fits lately and hauling all that brush out and staking it down had taken its toll on it. Then after all the eating I was just about comatose come Sunday morning and failed to get up again. I know.....excuses excuses. Knocked out a few “honey do” list items Sunday when I got up and then ran to Sportsman’s Warehouse to grab a hunting license. It was going to be a short and sweet afternoon sit but at least I was finally getting out to hunt.
I hauled out six dozen decoys in the AquaPod with a good mix of canvasbacks, pintails, wigeon, and a lone spoonie for the kill pocket. When I got to the marsh it was already 2:00pm and shooting time was going to be over at 4:52pm. Didn’t feel like messing with the jerk strings since I was in a hurry and that would prove to be a mistake. We had a 7mph East wind which had the marsh pond good and rippled when I arrived. No one else was around and I push poled out to the blind as quick as I could. Got the spread situated and hunkered down watching blue bird skies and very bright sun.
The few birds that were in the pond left pretty quickly when I hit the water. It was a long slow sit with nothing flying for most of the afternoon. I did have one lone spoonie drake that swung by in range but I let him go as I was hoping for something better as my first bird of the year. A canvasback skirted the edge of my range from behind me and I twisted around as best I could and got off a single hopeful shot that definitely didn’t connect. Finally with about an hour left a lone wigeon hen came drifting in to the right side of the blind. Not my favorite shot but she was low and slow so I made it work. A quick turn to face her just as she cleared the closest decoy and at the sound of the shot she burst into a cloud of feathers! First bird of the year was laying on the water motionless. The Patternmaster choke tube that I picked up from Dwayne P. before leaving South Carolina had done a fine job on her. The next pair of wigeon came down my left which is my preferred side for a passing shot. At around 25yds I pulled up and folded the drake nicely. I was down to 30min of shooting time left but was happy with what I had for such a short hunt.
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With only 10min to go before sunset a single pintail drake came across the pond. He checked out two groups of coots as I pleaded for him to come my way on the MorWhistle. Finally he turned towards my spread and floated around the backside of the blind as he lined up for a landing. Pintails usually aren’t so easily fooled but this one came in with blinders on. He crossed over the single spoonie decoy in the kill hole and I took the shot just as he put his feet out to land. That was the last bird of the evening that would come near me.
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Not a barn burner shoot by any means but for a 2.5 hour evening hunt for the first trip of the year I was absolutely satisfied!
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