Oh, what a beautiful day,
Big flocks of mallards and pin-tails,
Every thing's goin' my way.
Even better, I'm in New Mexico, not Oklahoma.
Actually, the morning started out sorta sucky, overcast with a light drizzle, not your typical New Mexico weather. There were a few ducks around, shot 1 mallard drake on a high shot and missed another. After a long lull I got a single widgeon about 8:00.
Then about 9:00 the skies started clearing and it turned into a beautiful day, made better by numerous flocks of mallards flying high overhead, going somewhere. I'll call at anything that might hear me, at least a couple of times, and I'm occasionally rewarded. Probably had called at 10+ flocks with no results, no surprise, then a flock of 6 put on their air brakes and spiraled down. Circled a few times before coming over from behind the blind, got a double on drake and hen. So that turned mediocre into Great!.
A while later a flock of ~15 mallards showed up lower out of nowhere and on the 2nd pass 3 out of the bunch dropped down over the decoys. But when I raised up to shoot the lower 3 turned into spoonbills, dangit! The rest of the flock, which were mallards weren't quite in range, circled a few times and left.
Then a flock of 10 mallards showed up and while they were circling a flock of pintails and a separate flock of widgeon dropped out of nowhere. In all the mayhem I lost my cool and took a crappy shot at the mallards, so that was starting to ruin my good mood.
Fortunately, not too long after that I called down a mixed flock of ~25 mallards and pintails from waay up there. They were probably 300 yards past me but the set their wings and turned on my 3rd highball. Wow that was exciting! Managed to keep my cool this time a got a "mixed double" out of the flock, mallard and pintail drake.
So a great ending to a beautiful day! Best hunt of the year so far.
Big flocks of mallards and pin-tails,
Every thing's goin' my way.
Even better, I'm in New Mexico, not Oklahoma.
Actually, the morning started out sorta sucky, overcast with a light drizzle, not your typical New Mexico weather. There were a few ducks around, shot 1 mallard drake on a high shot and missed another. After a long lull I got a single widgeon about 8:00.
Then about 9:00 the skies started clearing and it turned into a beautiful day, made better by numerous flocks of mallards flying high overhead, going somewhere. I'll call at anything that might hear me, at least a couple of times, and I'm occasionally rewarded. Probably had called at 10+ flocks with no results, no surprise, then a flock of 6 put on their air brakes and spiraled down. Circled a few times before coming over from behind the blind, got a double on drake and hen. So that turned mediocre into Great!.
A while later a flock of ~15 mallards showed up lower out of nowhere and on the 2nd pass 3 out of the bunch dropped down over the decoys. But when I raised up to shoot the lower 3 turned into spoonbills, dangit! The rest of the flock, which were mallards weren't quite in range, circled a few times and left.
Then a flock of 10 mallards showed up and while they were circling a flock of pintails and a separate flock of widgeon dropped out of nowhere. In all the mayhem I lost my cool and took a crappy shot at the mallards, so that was starting to ruin my good mood.
Fortunately, not too long after that I called down a mixed flock of ~25 mallards and pintails from waay up there. They were probably 300 yards past me but the set their wings and turned on my 3rd highball. Wow that was exciting! Managed to keep my cool this time a got a "mixed double" out of the flock, mallard and pintail drake.
So a great ending to a beautiful day! Best hunt of the year so far.
