As the final weeks of the waterfowl season drew to a close in the region where my duck camp is located on the Republic of Texas side of the Red River, my time afield was restricted as corporate demands kept me in London for a week as well as trips to Denver and St. Louis during the final week of the season.

As a waterfowl conservationist, it was encouraging to see an abundance of waterfowl during my travels. I have to admit that I was also surprised and a bit discouraged to see an abundance of waterfowl around Denver the final week of the season as several feet of snow surrounded Denver for hundreds of miles in all directions.

The logic of frozen ponds and food sources buried in snow would normally lead to the assumption that all the waterfowl in the area should have been winging south to my Red River blind, instead they seemed rather content to enjoy the background of the Rocky Mountains instead of taking flight south…

The following day as I traveled across St. Louis after landing at the airport, great flights of waterfowl were in the air obviously off a river roost. St. Louis is surrounded by water with great rivers including the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois Rivers converging there. Additional outstanding waterfowl habitat found in lesser rivers also dominates the landscape. It is a wonder that any ducks find their way within range of either my Benelli or my Canon on my home turf…

With only days remaining in the season, from the mahogany row vantage point high above the city of St. Louis I found it difficult to focus on business at hand as great flights of waterfowl dominated the floor to ceiling window view in front of me. I found myself daydreaming about the weekend hunts that I had managed before and after my London trip as well as the misery loves company trip fresh on my mind from the evening before…

Reflecting back, I was fortunate to have a great weekend hunt prior to heading off to London and despite being jet-lagged when I arrived home Saturday afternoon, at 5 AM Sunday morning, Lydia and I rendezvoused with our new friends Bryan & Denise whom we met via this forum. We made the journey to duck camp together to share our blind with them for a fantastic Sunday hunt. When the girls want to hunt, what is a little jet lag to the serious waterfowler?

Above is one of my favorite camo images from this year. Denise is hidden on the left all camo'd up with her eyes searching for waterfowl while my lens if focused on my girlfriend Lydia's beautiful camo green eyes...


Bryan, Denise & Lydia on our waterfowl double date

Bryan & Denise - A couple that waterfowls together, stays together...


Monday afternoon was a scheduled scout trip as I had an important corporate hunt scheduled for the final Friday of the season and had trips planned to Denver and St. Louis that would keep me away from duck camp for the rest of the week.

I had promised to take Matt, an enthusiastic new duck hunter that I met on the forum, afield and since time was running out on the season, I invited him to join me for the afternoon trip. We were both looking forward to hunting a pond that was on my lease that I had yet to hunt all season. It is small scenic lake surrounded by flooded timber, the ideal habitat for wood ducks and the ever elusive hooded merganser.

Apparently it had rained a good bit while I was in London and since I had not driven my very capable Toyota Land Cruiser, equipped with a lift, mud tires, snorkel and most importantly a 12,000 pound warn winch, after setting up my new friend on the secluded honey hole, I left him to hunt while I spent most of the late afternoon hiking out to find a cell signal so that I could request my good friend the rancher to please bring his tractor to pull my worthless in mud Z-71 4x4 Chevy Suburban out of a deep mud hole that I found myself in…

(Note to self, the ground next to the flooded timber is often wet with qualities similar to quick sand…)


The following morning I had an O’Dark thirty flight to Denver so thankfully we got pulled out before sunset and I was able to spend the final few minutes in the blind with Matt.

When I finally got home on Thursday after my Denver & St. Louis trips, I made a final run up to the duck camp that evening to make sure that I was ready for the final weekend which was scheduled to start off with a corporate hunt I was hosting on Friday at duck camp.

I built a new blind and put out a killer decoy spread. While I almost always put decoys out the morning of the hunt, I wanted to spend as much time as possible with my friends that would be hunting with me in the morning so I did all the work Thursday night. The extra effort with the decoys and new blind made for a spectacular final weekend.

Just one of the many great flights we saw the final few weeks of the season


Fantastic final Friday hunt. Cal on the left and I'm on the right. Charlie took this picture


My friend Cal brought his Lab Sydney. She is a master hunt champion but has not hunted for 5 years. I worked it out so that we could hunt an easy private lake so that so he could feel comfortable bringing her afield.

Sydney was a rock star retriever that day and it was very difficult to believe Cal when he told us that it had been 5 years since she last hunted. The morning started off with four Gadwalls cupping into our spread a minute after legal shooting time arrived. I call the shot and Cal dropped two with one shot, Charlie and I drop the other two. The rest of morning was more of the same. We all had doubles over the course of the hunt providing plenty of opportunity for Sydney to shine with blind retrieves a plenty…

Reflections of Sydney - one of my favorite images that I took of Sydney that day


Another favorite of Sydney

In the final weeks of the season, what limited scouting that my friends and I were able to do was successful as we found a roost on private property with several thousand ducks that had obviously migrated down during the last artic cold front. We had been looking forward to closing out the season with a spectacular roost shoot but the night before our hunt; our plan was foiled as the rancher that owns the private property that was holding the ducks invited some of his friends over to hunt it. I’m sure they had a world class hunt.

The jet lag and 3 hours of sleep a night for the past couple of weeks was starting to take its toll on me. I was hopeful on Saturday or Sunday of getting a trophy to mount. On Saturday we decided to hunt our favorite private lake since it has been so good the day before and since the roost was no longer available.

My Benelli was on target as I shot a double pair of Mallards and Gadwalls. I left my last shot for a Pintail drake that never came. My good friend Charlie harvested a Northern Shoveler drake, a beautiful trophy that will likely become his first waterfowl mount.

Charlie and his Northern Shoveler

My two favorite blondes, Lydia & Jessie, joined me afield to share the final hunt of the season. As the howling artic wind froze the edges of the pond, I passed on several flights of Gadwalls keeping my powder dry ever hopeful that I would end the season with a trophy Pintail drake or Hooded Merganser - perhaps next year. As the morning came to a close I harvested a Gadwall to give Jessie her final retrieve of the season and one final memory for me to delight in as I reflect back on a wonderful season afield…

Lydia on Target



Hunting with Two Blondes January 2007

Enjoy,

Blue Moon

Great story and pictures, I agree, the reflection in that picture it awesome

I liked the story a lot, the pics were great as well.

"A couple that waterfowls together, stays together... "

Awesome. I can't wait for next year.

Thanks,
Bryan

Great read and pics.

Thanks for the report and pictures.

great post. i really enjoyed the article and the pictures.

great post!

Good pics and post, thanks for sharing.

Great post and pics BM! I showed these to my wife last night with a "see, not all hunters are red necks!" I'm trying to get her into it, I think if she tried it, she would like it, though she does not like the cold at all. She has said she wants to go to the skeet range, maybe that is a start.

Wow!!!

Nuff said!

I know my wife will never get into it. Everytime I ask she's like...I'll go hunting when you start crafting with me. I was like you got a good point there honey!

She did shoot my 12ga a few times out at a friends place a couple months ago. Pretty funny watching it knock her back...good thing she wasnt shooting an O/U or a 3.5" turkey load.

Thanks to all of you for the kudos, they are both encouraging and very much appreciated. A few asked me directly about the camera set up. I shot all the images with a Canon 30D dSLR that I have only been shooting since Christmas. The lens is an out of production Canon EF 80-200mm 1:2.8 L that has since been replaced with a slightly better lens, the EF 70-200mm 1:28 IS USB L. The new digital SLR (dSLR) cameras make it very easy to get good shots.

Bryan – Lydia and I had a wonderful time hunting with you and yours. We also loved the Brian Burns concert and hope to do it again soon. Hope to get the originals images to you all soon. I still have over 200 from that hunt that I have not even looked at yet… Our best to you and yours!

Guy – apologies that I missed you the last week as I was very much looking forward to hunting with you. All the travel that came up the final two weeks made it very difficult to get the hunts in that I had hoped for. No complaints from me though as I’m very thankful for my gig - first things first… Hopefully next year you and your son can join me on a hunt, in the meantime, if your wife is serious about clays, consider joining us for a double or triple date at the range. Maybe we can get Bryan & Denise to also join us…

To the moderators, thanks for allowing me to double post. Since it was a photo essay I wanted to post under photos but since my passion is waterfowling, I also wanted to share the last few weeks with all the kindred spirits here that share my passion.

Finally, I encourage others to share more detailed reports about their season as it will help us all as we wait for the next hunting or fishing trip to arrive. There is an amazing amount of talent on this forum, including world class pros like Russell Graves to help inspire all of us. I look forward to reading more as you all share memories of your journey afield…

Blue Moon

When I'm duck hunting it seems I'm never cold.

Blue Moon,

Very cool...

Very well done!

J.J.

Guy my wife was the same way until she went out with me on five hunts. Her very first hunt she shot a Gadwall Drake at 40 yards left to right passing shot.... I tell her beginners luck!!!

Anyways it was fun to go out with her and then with her there I don't have a time I have to be home by.

The cold is still a little problem but we are trying to fix that for next year