I've gone on my first real duck hunt this past weekend!
We all limited, but unfortunately I had to leave early, so I didn't see everyone else limit.
We got up around 2am Saturday morning to meet my brother-in-law (the one who invited me) at his place and then we (my brother and I) followed him and his friends to lake Cooper. My brother and I have never been duck hunting before, and so this was a completely new experiance for me. I did tell my brother-in-law that no matter what I wanted him to take care of my little brother (he's only 16) as I know hunting has good days and bad days and I just wanted him to have a good time. Even if I had a bad time, I know what it takes to go hunting and I would go again, so it was important that my little bro have a good time his first time. We got setup by around 5:30am and sat waiting in the cold water up to our butts in our waders. The air was a stiff breeze (probably 10-15mph) right in our faces and BITTER cold. But as the sun started to brighten our day, we could hear the woodies flying overhead and I got all warm and fuzzy inside!!! As we sit there waiting for it to get light enough to see, my brother suddenly asks, "Can I shoot that one on the water or does he have to be flying?". Now this puzzled me because he was pointing in the direction of the decoys to which I thought "dummy!" but upon a short "discussion" and pointing back and forth, I discovered about 10 yards beyond the decoys a mallard had swooped in and landed! He saw the duck but didn't know if he could shoot or not, so he hadn't shot when it came in right over his head! Of course I told him to blast away, and as he raised his gun, BANG! Tim shot from the other side as he just realized there was a duck out in front of him. So the morning went on and we shot at ducks, I got my limit and then Micah (my brother) started complaining he was getting a little too cold. He has NO meat on him (runs cross country and just took 1st in state, so he's skinny as hell) and the cold was just getting to him. He hadn't shot any ducks but he threw plenty of steel at them, just none landed in those birds. So as we started to pack up, he suddenly gets a funny look on his face and tells me he realized he left his hunting license at my house.
I was not happy about it, but thankfully he had not shot any ducks, so I was only walking out with my limit of 5. I know we would have gotten a ticket had we run into the game warden, and I would have taken full responsibility for it as I should have checked to make sure he had it before we left the house. But even with him not shooting any ducks, and getting chilled to the bone, as we were walking out to the trucks he said, "You know, I'm not real sure I like duck hunting unless its warmer, but I'd like you to take me hunting again. Maybe next time we'll go deer hunting or you'll let me shoot a hog at your lease."
I'm telling ya boys, this big boy had to choke back tears!
Oh, and no one told me that waves at crotch height HURT when they lap at your sack for 3 hours.
