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!

Getting the Teal Pond Ready

Teal season opens on September 15th and runs through September 30th.  My buddy Gary called me and the boys and I met him this past Saturday morning.  It was a beautiful day to be alive.  Gary had stopped up the pond and caught some free rainwater.  We hooked up a plow to the back of Gary's ATV and he began plowing in the flooded duck pond.  The idea is to knock down enough stubble in the field to open up a "hole" where the ducks can see water and light on the pond with the decoys.

We began plowing planks to open up the pond.  Smelly, decomposing grass began floating to the top. Ducks can find plenty to eat in the pond.  I'll tell you what else was finding plenty to eat at our pond - mosquitoes!  They are terrible right now.

Now it was time to go ahead and put the decoys out in the pond.  The decoys in the blue tubs are many years old.  Gary purchased some new teal decoys to add to our mallard drake and hen decoys.

Gary is going to work the pond up with his plow one more time prior to opening day as there was still a lot of grass floating, but we put the decoys out just to see how it looked.  I think we'll be ready for them!

There is plenty of tall bitterweed and cane grass to hide behind at the pond's edge, so we'll just bring 5 gallon buckets to sit on while we hunt.  There is a daily bag limit of 6 birds.  It would be nice to get our limit.  Cooler weather will be here soon and we'd like to build a nice inventory of teal in the freezer from which to make duck gumbo this winter.

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.