Picture from last Saturday. Ducks, wooden decoys, and a Fox. Got invited to hunt some private land along the Cache River...classic Arkansas duck hunting...blind built in between cypresses on an oxbow, and when the sun came out, the birds started falling in like every hunter dreams. Who doesn't love watching green heads and blue wing patches shining in the sun when they make the swing, or the lead hen talking back to the callers? Oh, and I forgot to mention they know the birds won't come in until 8:30, so it was a pretty leisurely wake-up time and ride to the blind.
The weather forecast was for sunshine, so I took my 1929 Fox HE (Jim Cloninger was nice enough to part with it and help my Fox addiction). I had some handloaded ITX shot in #4, 1 1/8-ounce loads to try out, and...they worked. Five of us worked on the birds until 11 or so. For the most part, the mallards were coming back in twos, threes, and fours, and the men in the blind were on that morning. There wasn't the, "which duck should we shoot?"...three birds in, three birds down. The three widgeon were a bonus...drake, hen and immature drake. I rolled the drake cleanly right over the decoys, and two other people downed the others.
My best shot of the day was on a hen that isn't in the picture. A pair came in, and another person and I shot the drake, but I was slightly later on the trigger pull, so he gets the credit. Two others emptied out on the hen, and she peeled up and out of the hole over the blind. I swung through, saw her through a mat of branches, and touched off the left barrel. The man in charge said, "we got the drake!!", and I said, "and here comes the hen..." as she helicoptered down in a shower of twigs and landed in the water beside the blind.
We finished up just two birds shy of a five-man limit in the sunshine and 65-degree weather.
Thanks again, Jim, for parting with this sweetheart...I am still getting used to her, but it is definitely a love affair...
