Hunted a small piece of water near the river, the big "C" as it is called.
While throwing the deeks and setting up the jerk string, the mallards were dropping into my little hole. When I was almost done, 2 fat mallards dropped in the water probably not much more than 10 feet from where I was stringing out the jerk string. I got to thinking it might be LST by now and, as the birds flew off, I reached in my coat to look at the phone for the time. It was one minute past LST. I could've shot at those birds. Oh well, that's the breaks.
First bird I shot was a greenhead. I passed on a few hen mallards and a komakazi pintail hen and then wiffed a few greenheads. I was gonna try to stay green but, I just wasn't hitting good enough.
I adjusted my expectaions and the next birds in were 3 hoodeds. I dropped the drake and wiffed one shot at one of the hens. I missed a few more greenheads and then dropped a suzy.
By now it was getting to be close to time to pick up. I set Kodi and the 3 birds outside of the hide and took these two picture.
This first one shows the hide behind Kodi and the birds.
The second is more of Kodi and the birds, at that point.
I started picking up the blocks and what do you suppose would happen? Yep, a couple Suzies came visiting and I let one stay.
I finished packing everything up and got the cart loaded and took this picture back at the trail out.
In my own defense, I was shooting my sister's gun, which has a shorter barrel. I trashed my Nova's barrel last season.(bent it)I think I might have also been out too far in front of most of the birds. I have that issue with park ducks in close. I'm more of a diver hunter and, am used to birds moving faster. I forget to adjust for these slow park ducks.
Anyway, it wasn't a bad day for my first of the season and only a few hours to squeeze a hunt in.
I think they make some big bright beads for folks like you.