The private farm lands where I hunt got about 2 feet of water from Friday and Saturday down pour. I only had one hunting buddy who can make it this morning, however he texted me saying he's going to be late. He told me he's wouldn't be there till 9:30 am. I guess I have to setup the decoys by myself. It took me about 15 minutes to chucked out about 3 dozen duck and 2 robo decoys. When I was setting up the decoys, quite few widgeons were buzzing around near the spread. When I was done I sat in duck blind and just started to load the shotgun and had some flock of ducks fly in looking the decoys. I told myself I am not going to shoot widgeons or teals today but my eye sight must be going blind your truly is in mid 60 year old fart. I fired 2 shots and 2 hen widgeon dropped. I thought they were hen mallards. I blamed on over cast sky and I looked at time on my watch and it reads 8:34 am.
When I fired I must woke up the whole Fraser Valley duck population. The sky was black with ducks. There were thousands of them. I had over couple hundreds of widgeons and some teals buzzed around my decoys and even had some landed in decoys. It's reminded me of some Alberta duck hunting videos I saw on Youtube where hundreds of ducks buzzing around. It's was incredible sight to see. I was starring at flock searching for mallards and I did pick out 1 hen mallard. One shot its down.
In next 30 minutes, must had over couple thousand widgeons, some teals and some mallards circling around decoys. Had many widgeons and some green wing teals landed into the decoy spread. The mallards are quite exquisite to exist but did managed to knocked 4 down. I told myself I not going to shot any more mallards unless they are greenheads. I didn't want to shoot my limit so fast since my friend is not here yet. Around 9:34 he call saying he here walking out. I say hurry up there lots of ducks around.
After I hung up on him, I had greenie flew in and I took him out. Darn. I just needed one more duck for my limit. In next hour I watch my young 29 year old hunting buddy ( he's actually my son's friend) my son doesn't like hunting. He shot 2 widgeon to shake off his spider web and I told him now shoot the mallards instead. He questioned me why I shot widgeons. I made all kind of excused underneath the sun blaming on snatched marks on my prescription glass, overcast sky etc.
We were one duck short each on our limit. By 10.32 am mission accomplish. We ended up with 11 mallards and 5 widgeons. I told him most mallards we shot are locally from Lowermainland. They have light orange feets, and lot smaller than Northern mallards. Overall, just average day for me on early season duck hunt.
Had quite few hunting buddies ask me to join them on WT doe hunt but I declined. I told them it's hard for me to get up 5:00 am on cold morning at camp. I getting to be fair weather hunter.
"Nothing kills a Deere faster than Magnum .....CaseIH."