Good Time in the Duck Blind

Every year at this time, my buddy Gary and I get together for some duck hunting at the farm in Oberlin.  Last weekend teal season opened.  Teal are a small migratory duck that fly a LONG way.  Several years ago I killed one that had been tagged in Canada.  I read somewhere that they winter in South America.  They certainly put in a lot of miles on their wings.

Gary and I meet at 6 am, right before sunrise and park on the side of the road.  We're both in camo and have our shotguns and plenty of shells.  The previous weekend, Gary had put the decoys out to attract the ducks.  We walk down the muddy road whispering to each other and then walk down a grassy levee and take a seat on turned over 5 gallon buckets.  We are hidden from the pond by tall grass.  Gary takes out a can of OFF and passes it to me.  It's a good thing he remembered because the mosquitoes are atrocious.  It is hot and humid.  We are concerned about all the rainfall we've had.  Despite getting a free flood on our pond, there is plenty of water everywhere for the ducks to land.

As the sun rises above the fog, the view across the pond takes shape.

The pond is actually the bottom cut of a rice field.  There is a gully immediately behind us, and we can hear the rush of water flowing out of the field through the drop pipe as the rainwater makes its way over the weir.  

We hear shooting in duck ponds around us and see lots of ducks flying.  Teal fly faster than most ducks.  Wood ducks fly in front of us in spitting distance, mocking us, seemingly knowing it is not wood duck season.  Pretty soon a teal flies by and we take it down.  Then two more fly in and we harvest those.  Only three on Saturday morning, though.  We always do a lot of visiting in the duck blind and miss a shot here and there when 'swarms' of teal fly past us.  Here is Gary with two of the teal that flew into a hail of steel shot.

Gary and his daughter went Sunday morning to see if they could add to the pot.  I texted him after 8 am and he told me they got four.  We'll try again Saturday morning.  It will be the last weekend of teal season.  

So you can tell why they call them blue-winged teal, can't you?

I always find it interesting when cleaning birds, to cut open the gizzard to see what they've been eating.  In this teal's gizzard, there was a little sand and a lot of rice with an assortment of small seeds.

This teal had lots of pin feathers and was time consuming to clean.  After gutting the teal, I froze them.

It's the beginning of a gumbo.  I hope to add to the pot next weekend!  Gary and I already have plans to meet.  Looking forward to it!

Cold Morning in the Duck Blind

In This Post we chronicled how we built our duck blind this year and envisioned ducks falling from the sky and eventually ending up in our freezer for making duck gumbo.  The season, to this point, was a bust.  We had heard from other hunters that there just weren't many ducks this year and some weekends we had other things going and weren't able to get out to the blind.

With the season down to the final weekend, Benjamin said, "Let's give it one last shot, Dad."  And so we did.  We woke up at 5:20, put on camouflage, and loaded up our guns and hit the road.  It was dark and we had a 30 minute drive ahead of us to make it to Oberlin.  We were racing the sun as we had to be in the blind before sunrise so as not to scare off the ducks that may be already in the pond.
We stopped off first by the shop and grabbed a couple of five gallon buckets to sit on.

We parked the car and walked to the blind.  It was cold and the frozen, frosty ground crunched as we walked.  We made it before sunrise and took a seat scanning the horizon, looking for ducks and watching God paint a masterpiece on the canvas that was the Eastern sky.

The Hunter

Our blind was a good blind and we were hidden from sight.  We were able to peer out at the pond and see the decoys.  Benjamin took his glove off his trigger finger hand and waited.

Decoys on the pond

As we scanned the skies, we saw a nice sunrise and as we shifted on our buckets trying to stay warm, we looked overhead and saw a large group of ducks flying overhead, but they were high - too high, and flying with purpose somewhere, just not to our blind.

The Creator's Canvas

We waited and waited and waited and soon the sun had fully risen over the horizon with not a duck in sight.  Benjamin noticed 3 empty shotgun shells on the ground in our blind and said, "Someone must have shot some ducks in our blind, Dad."  But I told him that I had talked to my buddy, Gary, and he had come out to the blind on a previous weekend and like us, didn't see many ducks.  He told me that finally, he looked over and saw a coyote walking on the road.  He emptied his 12 gauge, but the coyote was too far away.

Finally, we decided to head back home.  As we walked back in the daylight, we were able to see that it was indeed cold.  There was a thin layer of ice on the pond.

Ice on the Duck Pond

There was also frost on the weeds on the ground on our way back to the car.

We drove back home, duckless and a little disappointed, but we had a good time just getting out and being in the great outdoors and having some 'guy time.'  We'll look forward to next duck hunting season.  There's always next year.  At least we have some squirrels and doves that Benjamin has tucked away in the freezer.  Next year we'll get the ducks...

If you build it, will they come?

The ducks, that is.  We're running late, but we wanted to get the duck pond and blind ready for the remainder of the duck season.  Once the second-crop rice harvest was out of the field, my buddy Gary stopped up the bottom cut and captured the rainwater from a recent rain.  The boys and I met him to work on flattening out the rice stubble to make a hole or clear area so that the ducks will see the water and land.  We initially tried with a four wheeler.  The four wheeler was pulling a plow normally used to make a food plot for deer.

Slinging mud in the duck pond

Unfortunately, the four wheeler almost got stuck several times in the big ruts caused by the combine tires.  The plow wasn't really turning over the ground and burying the rice straw either.  We decided to try again another day.

Not quite getting the job done.  We'll try again.

So we showed up and started building the duck blind by driving four t-posts into the ground and then encircled the area with hog wire.

The beginning of the duck blind

Russ and Benjamin and I began walking out on the levees and cutting down bitter weed and cane grass.  We carried that back to the blind and began weaving the weeds into the holes in the hog wire. It was slow work, but it was a beautiful day and it was nice to be out in the 70 degree weather.

Weaving the grass in the blind

Dad came with the tractor to try plan b.  We drug a cattle panel behind the tractor with some tires on top to provide weight.  He drove around in big circles to knock the rice stubble down and create a stinky muddy hole that ducks love.

Knocking down the rice stubble in the duck pond

The duck blind was really coming together, we all weaved grass into every hole in the fence that surrounded the blind.  Pretty soon, we had a really nice blind that will keep us hidden from the waterfowl that hopefully will land in our pond.

Adding a few final touches

As you can see, the tractor pulling the panel did a good job knocking down the rice straw, making a circular, watery spot in which we'll put out decoys.

Muddying up the duck pond

Finally, we were finished.  In all it took about an hour and a half.  All we need to do is put out the decoys now.

Russ & Benjamin (and a job well done)

Although we missed teal season and a part of the first split of 'big duck' season, we're going to do our best to put some ducks in the freezer for what remains.  We're in the west zone and have from November 15th - December 14th and then the second split from December 20th - January 18th. Hopefully, this stealthy blind that my boys built will assist us in having a good time and enjoying some mighty fine eating.