"Teal" hunt

After a very slow dove hunt last week (shot 1), I got to go on my second So Ill hunt this week. This time, we were trying to get in some shooting during the early teal season. The first week had been teal-free, but we were betting that a mid-week cold front which dropped the temps from the 30s to the teens would have brought a few teal in. My boss wanted to go on Friday morning to beat the crowds (when your boss asks you to play hookie, you don't say no). We headed to a state property that apparently no one outside the research lab knew was open to hunting until the last year or two. We pulled into the lot around dawn (legal is sunrise during teal season) and found another truck already there. We confirmed that they were heading to the spot we wanted, so we took a contingency spot further down the slough from them, about 400 yds away. The "pond" we set up in was overgrown with arrowhead, so we made a small crop circle for the decoys and got comfortable.

In Florida, the early season is for teal and wood ducks; as a consequence, it's a shorter season. In So ON, the duck season's opening for months here very soon (you guys excited yet?!). But in IL, it's just teal. So, what did we spend the next 30 minutes doing?

Flock upon flock of wood duck, likely totalling close to 500 birds poured off the roost, flew right over our heads, and headed to the neighbouring rice field. It was impressive and got me really excited for regular season. That was until my boss explained that the majority of them would be gone before our Nov 27th opener.

We saw 3 teal fly by out of range. Later, those teal returned to the other guys, as did a flock of about a dozen teal. We packed up and headed home early. No ducks to show for our efforts, but it was a scene to behold that morning. And you couldn't pick better weather.