A couple days ago a buddy asked me to come out in mid-day to the Bay and on a whim decided to hop in the truck to come out. I knew from recent weeks things had still not really picked up in Boundary - in fact having been checked by COs last weekend they acknowledged most hunters had reported things were quite poor in Delta public land this season. So with expectations low but not wanting to give up the pass my wife gave me I was happy to spend the afternoon seeing what was out there. Another reason I wanted to go out was to see if a wader fix I had done would stick. Unfortunately, my High N Dry breathables had produced a leak and I meant to see if my 3M glop would do the trick.
On this day I aimed to make it a low-key hunt so on arrival I only intended to bring in less than a dozen floaters in a bag - no sled. Besides, my Lucky Duck's battery had conked out and out of my four Flock Flickers, only one still worked. After sorting out my kit, I walked out on the dyke to see what was out there while my friend finished last minute shopping at Bass Pro.
From the dyke it looked initially promising. The weather, while clear, had mixed clouds and had a brisk wind. More encouraging was seeing small flocks of teal rising and falling on the coast exactly where I thought I would sit. And it seemed other hunters were busy shopping for the holidays as I didn't hear shots nor did I see any activity. This was also borne out by seeing a coyote bounding in the foreshore without a care. So when my friend arrived we had all the coast to ourselves it seemed. Without competition we decided we could sit at one of the 'easy spots' and see what happened.
Between the two of us we had a dozen floaters and no mojo - my friend had actually bought a brand new Avian X flapper but forgot the body in his car! He initially wanted to go back for it but I urged him to make do and do it old school. That, as it turned out, became our theme for the day because while we didn't get the activity I hoped, we were able to make the most of what I consider core skill opportunities today.
At first we thought it would be a big teal day as they were coming down as we were throwing out our decoys. But as it turned out, the teal, while active, skipped over our little bay and stayed out of reach. While my friend wondered whether his flapper might bring them down if he had not forgotten it, at least we had a decent spread of decoys.
For the first hour, it seemed like we would be teased by teal and otherwise have a quiet but nice afternoon watching the sun go down. And as for any other ducks (there were no geese at all around) we saw only far off singles and doubles going off on their own holiday missions. Without much to do, we shared stories and practiced calling. And it was in the calling that we were able to get some excitement. I was pleasantly surprised to note that he had been practising and together we were definitely hitting the right notes. With no one else but each other to annoy we decided to do our best to try to draw in some of the randoms we saw high in the sky. As it turned out, this redeemed a low activity day.
Complementing each other with our different calls, mutters and whistles, and in the absence of other hunters to confuse the issue, we definitely started turning birds and making them show interest. Even in the semi-blue bird day it turned out to be we were encouraged to see an affect from the old school hunting we were doing. No machines, no gadgets, just floaters and our calling. Then soon enough we got one pintail to circle and it came down for us. Scrunching down below the log we were squatting beside, I saw its sweet glide coming down low over our decoys and first my friend missed but I put it down. Marching out into the surf I brought it back - a wonderful drake.
A short time later, two teal landed amongst our decoys but just on the outer edge. My friend took a try at swatting them but unfortunately they were well protected by the water and escaped.
But then later, once again, I spotted a double far off headed into the bay. I called it out and we both lent our breaths heavily into the calling. The two seemed unconcerned at first but then just as it seemed they would keep going, one of them dipped its wings and canted toward our spread and its partner followed. As they made their first pass we saw they were pintails and paused our calling to see if the spread itself would be of interest. When it seemed they were going to keep going, we started blowing hard again and almost like they were on a line, they cornered again, made a wide sweep behind us and came down in a graceful glide. And just like that as they slowed right over our spread we made two quick shots and they dropped almost gift wrapped side by side.
We both knew it was textbook and high fived and went out to admire our hauls.
We ended the day with just the three birds - some other hunters did end up wandering onto the shore later - but on such an otherwise idle day being able to sweetly call in the ones we got seemed to me like a pure experience. Like - this is what it should be all about. No skybusting, no no-hoper shots, just birds being called by our human powered voices all the way down.
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