Duck Opener - What A Day!
The alarm on my cellphone goes off, and doesn’t make it past its first sequence of tones before I turn it off and spring out of bed. It is 3:30AM, September 10th, the duck season opener.
Everything was carefully and methodically packed and placed the evening before, to ensure an easy transition from house to field. I slip into my clothes and waders, toss on the jacket, and meet my dad in the driveway, and 30 minutes after feet hit the floor, we are on our way to the ramp.
Head lamps fastened, we make quick work of unloading the boat, and the gear and before long, and we’re headed up stream. Its 10 degrees, overcast, with a good breeze, perfect. We slink the river under the stealth power of the trolling motor, about a 10 minute ride. As we round the corner into the bay that we are going to set up in, and the one I have been using for quite some time, I see something, something different, some new.
I shine my light over, and there it is. A brand new blind. A million thoughts roll through my head, combined with disappointment. Now what do we do? Its 4:30AM, the morning of opener, and someone has built a brand new blind in the spot I had planned to hunt. Dad and I have a quick discussion, and it is decided we will setup, not use the blind, but rather tuck the boat into the reeds like always, and deal with things as they come.
We get the spread out, the mojo’s going and just about to get back to the reeds when we hear a boat come around the corner. They slow down and shout, “You’re not planning on using that blind are you?” I reply back, “no, we’re going to tuck into the reeds” the conversation continues on, and he informs me that he just built that blind, along with two others in the next two bays. We have a civil discussion about the next steps, and I apologize for the inconvenience, and had I known that it was there, I certainly would have planned to go elsewhere, and that there has never been a blind here before, let alone other hunters, combined with it being an hour and a half from shooting time, on the opening morning, my options were limited. I offer to share the spot, the spread, the ducks, and my dog, but he declines and says his group of four, will head to the next blinds.
We tuck ourselves in, and take in the beautiful morning, I am working the call lightly, and bird, after bird, after bird, is splashing down into the spread. My dad checks his watch, about two more minutes until legal shooting time. All of a sudden, boom! The blinds down from us get the party started early. Legal light comes and I quietly load up, dad, with his new semi, pops the first shell in, hits the button to load and lets it run home, full throttle. The loud clang sends every bird in the spread scrambling and we watch I don’t know how many, lift up and off.
Then the barrage of gun fire starts, from every direction, I look at dad and say “how many guys are out here?” I hunted this spot heavily last year, only once, did we run into someone. Apparently it is now a popular spot.
I get on the call and try and get some birds back in, the first one in is a green winged teal and I pop up and take it, splash one. Maddy is released and on the retrieve, when another bird, a blue winged teal comes in on my side and I swing and drop it as well. Two retrieves and two birds in the blind.
A few minutes later, another canoe comes around the bend, paddling full steam to our setup. They get close and the guy in the front, very abrasively, says “who gave you permission to hunt this blind?” without thinking, I say “it’s public land” however, we had a discussion with the gentleman who claims he built these blinds, and as we got here first, not knowing they existed, they continued on down to their other two. He then asks “is that your red truck at the launch?” I say “no, we drive the white journey” he looks at me a minute, and then identifies himself as a conservation officer, and we are hunting over a bait pile.
All I can say at this point is, “I had no idea officer” he then goes onto explain that someone has been baiting it for the past month, and as fresh as yesterday. I explain, this is our first time here since November of last year, and at 4:00 AM, we couldn't see anything. He continues on to explain the regulations we are in violation of, hunting a site that has been bated within the last 7 days, and hunting less than 400M from a bait.
They check our licenses, tags, ammo, etc. At this point, it is pretty clear, they know exactly who they are looking for, and it is not us. We are simply, in the wrong place at the wrong time. While all this is going on, the birds are circling and wanting to come in. The CO’s are extremely apologetic, feeling bad they have busted up our hunt, but we can’t stay there and have to move. I ask if we have to surrender our birds. The younger CO says, “Well, they are illegal birds” and the older one steps in and says “no, you can keep your two birds, but you can’t hunt here anymore”
They were very polite, professional, and sympathetic to the fact that we were oblivious to the infractions that occurred, and that they cut our opener short. We told them we understood, they were just doing their jobs, and we started taking down the set. They continued up the river and we headed back to the launch.
We start unloading our gear when the CO’s appear again, I ask “was it a good morning?” “It was a great morning” they reply. And in their boat, 11 ducks, and a few guns.
We continue to unload when the group that we had the discussion with in the morning arrives at the launch. The one guy gets out and comes up to me and says “I understand I owe you an apology” and proceeds to say how sorry he is, that he ruined our opening morning hunt, and that he miss understood the regulations. I tell him no hard feelings, and he apologizes over and over, with watery eyes.
As we load up, the CO’s have the ducks on the back of their tailgate, take their guns into the truck, and proceed to do their interviews. During this time we overhear, that on top of everything, they had 11 ducks in the blind, and both guns still out “working off a shared limit” they told the CO’s.
I can’t imagine the fines they will be receiving but it sounded like they were getting full service. Apparently, they put out a piece of plywood on the pond, and would pile it with corn, for the last month.
As we’re about to leave, a single goose flies over top of us, and all of a sudden BOOM! Pellets are raining down on us. One CO heads toward the shore saying “I’ll put an end to this right now” and proceeds to have words with someone in a kayak. We can’t see the other guy, but the CO is yelling at him, about the fact that there’s 9 trucks and guys up here, and he’s sky blasting a single goose overtop of us.
The exchange continues when the CO orders him over to shore so he can check licenses, then we hear “are you refusing?” “It will only make things worse if you try and take off” which he does.
That was enough excitement for us for one morning and we are on our way, two birds in the truck.
We check out a few more spots, and paddle a few more rivers, but no birds.
This morning we got up to 45KM/h winds and torrential down pours, hopefully, it eases up a bit for the evening hunt.
And that was my opener.
Truck loaded, and Maddy ready on Duckmas eve!
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Checking out another river after the morning bust.
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Huntress on the watch.
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Trying out an old blind on another river, on a drizzly afternoon.
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And the "Hero" shot. Maddy not enjoying the pouring rain on her head, but two birds for the effort
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Two wings ready to send off to CWS.
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