Last hunt of the season

[Mean Gene]

Today was the last hunt of my season as I'm headed north to see my mom and won't be back until after it ends here. Seemed fitting to end the season with the same person I started it with...my daughter Sarah. We agreed to meet here at the house at 5, and of course I had to call her at 5:10 to wake her up because she'd slept through the alarm. No big deal, figured we'd get there when we got there. After getting the blind set and everything settled, I realized I had left our lunch in the car...along with the thermos of coffee. Hmm, not the best of starts. It was pretty slow to start, but Sarah kicked things off with a Scotch double on wigeon. Some time after that she whacked a hen goldeneye. Then I had to listen to her gloat about her having three ducks and me having zero. It wasn't long before a flock of bluebills landed in the decoys about 20 yards away. Great, scaup are closed here. However, there was one lone drake ringer in the bunch. I pointed it out and told her to kill it. She said for me to take it because she was scared she was going to kill one of the bluebills. I waited for it to get by itself, then sluiced it where it sat. Not long after that I looked up and here came three drake goldeneyes screaming down the river. As they got close I called the shot, stood up, and Scotch doubled. She said it didn't matter because her ducks were better than mine. At one point she asked me to get a log so she could put it in front of her in the blind and put her feet on it to get them out of the water. I brought her a log, and she promptly smacked it into the stand holding the binoculars and shells...all of which went into the water. I washed the shells off and put them back into the box. No big deal. We wiped the binos off as best we could, but I had to go set them in the sun to melt the ice on the lenses. About a half an hour and they were good as new. We kept waiting for the wigeon to show, but they were being turds. I told her they probably wouldn't show until mid-day, BUT, having left the lunch in the truck I doubted she'd stay all day. She has a tendency to get bored easily, and without food she gets REAL impatient. Around 11:30 she got the "I'm ready to go NOW!" look. I told her if the birds hadn't come in by 12:30 we'd head out. She wasn't exceptionally pleased, but she didn't complain too much. I also told her it was now open season on buffies. By 12:30 we had 11 total ducks: wigeon, goldeneyes, buffies, a ring neck and a redhead. BUT, she knew it was the "appointed" time, so I begrudgingly agreed to keep to my word and we started picking up. As soon as we unloaded the guns and put them in the cases, 50 wigeon started to pour into the river. I scrambled to get the gun out of the case and some shells in, and brought the gun up in time to whack the last wigeon out of the hole....and t fell right into the black berries. Great! We got that one out and Sarah pointed to four more coming in. I had one shell in the gun. I picked the closet bird, pulled the trigger, and folded it....and it fell into the top of a tree. I broke brush to get to the tree and pulled down the bird. Now we were sitting at 13 for the two of us. We got back to the blind, piled the birds on the front of the boat and took a couple pictures. I handed my gun to Sarah and told her I'd pick things up, and if anything came in she should whack it. I grabbed a couple things and packed them and she said, "Dad, here they come!" Screaming straight into the decoys were three drake buffies. She raised the gun and stoned the closest bird, and the day was done. Pretty fitting if you ask me: she killed the first bird on out first hunt opening day, and she killed the last bird on out last hunt of the season.

A lot of guys are whining incessantly about how poor their season has been. Well gentlemen, it was hunts like this with my daughter than made this one of the best I have ever spent in the marsh. I can hardly wait for next year.

[GadwallGetter530]

Well done.

[rebelp74]

Good stuff man!

[3legged_lab]

Nice

[Feelin' Fowl]

Great end to the season!

[RonE]

Great way to end the season.

[HighDesertDuck]

Great write up. Sounds like great time. Congrats.