In all my 74 years I've never seen a LARGE migration flight of Woodies ... until today. I was out running the three dogs around 7:30 this morning and when we came back to the back porch, I heard the familiar sound of a Woodie or two overhead. Looked up and there was one large group of maybe 30-40, followed by several smaller and then a few larger groups, all flying from N to S over Denison CC. I wouldn't call it a "grand passage", but for someone who's hunted ducks for almost 60 seasons, it was the largest flights of Wood Ducks I've ever seen. Maybe good portends for next week's opener.

I usually have fairly big groups of wood ducks in my marsh early season. two years ago I killed a banded drake that was banded 3 weeks earlier in Valders, WI. Last year I took my son on a youth hunt. He was 8 years old and had never killed a duck. He was using a single shot .410. He had shot a lot of shells that morning but nothing to show for it. We were about to leave and I see a big wad of ducks coming from behind. At first I didn't know what it was. then I heard the sound of the wood ducks squeeling through the air. There had to be 50-60 of them. They came over the back of the blind and crashed into the decoys. My son jumped up, shot once, and dropped 2 birds, a hen and a drake. It was so exciting for him. I had another time a couple of years ago when a big group hit my blind early season, I would say there were 30-40 birds, 4 guys dropped 9.

This season will be epic. We shall kill trillions of ducks

You gonna shot some this year cappy?