To say that today was slow would be the understatement of the year. Today's crew consisted of me, Eric, Franki and Derek. Eric picked Franki and I up at 3:30 this morning, as we had a little longer drive than normal. We were on our way back out to Finley. After our arrival, Eric parked the truck and hopped out. I did too. We left the kids in the truck to stay warm while we took a load of decoys down to the water. As we started to unload the decoys from the bags, we were both nearly blinded by headlights which stopped right next to the river bank. Eric and I looked at each other and were probably thinking the same thing; why did we park so far away when we could have pulled up right here? Eventually the truck left and Eric went back to move his truck to the spot where the other truck had come in and left. He unloaded the boat and we got the spread set for the day. We went back to the truck to stay warm until shooting time which was still a little over an hour away. The warm air put me right to sleep. Not a light sleep, either. The wake-myself-up-from-snoring-too-loud kind of sleep.
Eric woke everyone up at 6:40 and it was game on at that point. I just knew that I would get my canvasback today. Holy cow, was I wrong! We sat freezing in the lingering fog for quite a while. Time passed and finally, something worked into our decoys. A teal had landed and was sitting in the middle of the decoys. The bird jumped back into the air. Franki and Derek shot and missed. Franki shot again. Another miss. Well, that was all those two needed to start ribbing each other. The next five minutes were filled with Franki and Derek telling each other how much the other sucked at shooting. The funny part is...neither one touched the bird.
The morning slowly crept by. Eric took some shots, and so did I. We just couldn't find any birds that wanted to run into our pellets. The birds weren't lining up to get into our decoys, either.
Finally, at about 9:00, I connected with a mallard. She worked her way into the decoys with a drake. Derek and I were the only ones to take a shot. Both of our first shots missed. Eric was leaning back in his chair and Franki was in la-la land. I took a second shot and down she came. It was one of the longest (successful) shots that I have ever taken. I would guess she was at about 50-60 yards when she was hit. She dropped to the water and began to swim. After she hit the water, Eric jumped to his feet. As he was starting to move to his boat for the retrieve, the drake circled back around. Eric worked him for another couple of turns then off he flew. During that time, my hen swam farther away. By the time Eric got the boat into the water, she was way out there. As Eric paddled toward her, she kept swimming. Eventually, Eric disappeared into the fog. At that point, I was a little concerned that a barge might run him over. After a few minutes of watching the fog bank, we heard a couple of muffled pops. I knew that Eric had either found her or he had drifted down-river and took a couple of shots at the enormous raft of ducks we had been watching in the middle of the river. He emerged from the fog and paddled back. The mallard was recovered. This would prove to be the last (and only) bird of the day.
As we were picking up for the day, I noticed how bad of shape my mallard decoys are in. Five have a big crack in the back which lets water in if the waves are too big. A new problem was discovered today, however. One of my mallard hens' beaks was hanging half off her face. As I smiled to myself, I thought "That's probably why nothing decoyed today. What bird would want to land next to a bird whose beak is hanging half off?" But I knew better. Still, it felt a little better to blame my equipment instead of the conditions.
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