I didn’t plan on going hunting Sunday morning because I figured things would be frozen up so bad that we couldn’t get any ducks near a blind. But a farmer friend called me yesterday afternoon and said there were so many ducks in one of our fields that they were keeping the water from freezing up. So we tried it.
I’m not kidding, there were so many ducks at daylight that it darkened the sky when they took off. There were at least a thousand, and most of them were big ducks — mallards, pintails and gadwalls. We got a few and they flew off, but in about 15 minutes they came back. And we got a few more. They kept flying off, but they didn’t have anywhere to go. So they came back. The four of us ended up getting 24 and just enjoyed the heck out of the morning. Days like this is why we duck hunt. It was about 17 degrees and it was cold, but we were bundled up good and down in that pit blind, we were out of the wind.
The toughest thing was we did have to go out and break up the ice with the four-wheeler in places. It was 3-4 inches deep in some places, but that open water just kept the ducks coming back. It was unbelievable. A lot of the decoys had their heads frozen down in the ice right in front of the blind, but that didn’t matter. They were spooky off those shiny, solid sheets of ice early, but after the sun came out, they worked great.
The good news is we have lots of ducks. It’s as many ducks as I can remember seeing in the area and as it thaws out tomorrow and the rest of the week, we should have some great hunting. In fact, if we keeping getting a few new ducks and these hang around the rest of the season, it’s going to be a banner year and lots of fun for duck hunters.
We are going to try some flooded timber in the morning where there have been lots of ducks. We’ll let you know how we did.
Be safe out there!
