Oh, and quail.
But! I completely forgot to tell you about seeing a deer in my last post. Crazy! In the middle of the duck hunt, I looked across to the bank of the pond and thought, ‘Wow, did someone bring a Great Dane as their bird dog?” No kidding – a nice sized doe was trotting past the pond. Odd, and the first time I’ve ever seen a deer while duck hunting.
The fun doesn’t stop there, either.
Duck season continues, and it’s getting more and more fun. The weekend before the Christmas holiday I was able to do some duck, deer, and quail hunting. It was the first (and only) actually cold weekend we’ve had, and it was quite a busy one, for sure! I know I usually have a sunrise photo as the first one in a post, but there’s a reason I don’t this time. As I said, it was a cold weekend – about 29* as we headed to the duck blind before the sun came up. Wading out into the pond, we could all feel the chilly water pressing against our waders. Unfortunately, I was about to have that chilly water inside my waders instead.
Long story short, I managed to make a slow fall face first into the already waist-deep water thanks to an unexpected hole and a hurt leg. Thankfully, our pal Douglas was walking behind me and is pretty quick on reaction time, snagging me by my gun strap just as the majority of my braid went into the water as well. The whole incident felt like it took 10 minutes, but probably was only about 5 seconds. Another 2 seconds and I would definitely have been face first under water!
Of course, I was too stubborn to go back to the house (Wuan, you didn’t hear that), and instead made the rest of the trek to the blind so I could hunt. FOMO much? You bet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great hunt for me, but John had one heck of a time. The ducks came in pretty fast and furious, and he had 3 ducks on the water before I even pulled my trigger. Two of the ducks just so happened to be a drake and a hen blue-winged teal, and he knocked them both down with one shot. Pretty impressive!
And, wouldn’t you know it – we saw another deer. This time, it was a big-bodied 6 point buck who was trying to slip past unnoticed. Once he realized we’d spotted him, he was off in two shakes of his white tail. Two deer in two hunts. Craziness I tell you!
The other hunters came out with a good mixed bag as well! Overall, a great hunt… Despite my fall and lack of ducks. Take that, FOMO.
… Or not. No, those jeans are not always so dark. But a gallon or two of pond water will really do the trick.
After some breakfast and coffee and relaxation, Paco took a few of his buddies on a quail hunt, so we tagged along. A bright chilly day definitely called for some time in the woods!
I had plans to wake up early the next morning, but that alarm came early and that weather was still chilly, so I hit snooze for a while and finally headed out after the sun was well up. My plan was to walk and stalk, hoping I’d jump a doe and would get a shot. Hey, it worked once, why not again!
On the way to my spot to hunt, I passed a big field filled with turkeys. There were probably 20 of them, maybe more, so I stopped to snap a picture of them.
See them all?
Well, my pause on the 4-wheeler naturally startled them, so they took off running as a group. Then, do you know what those birds did? Instead of continuing their silly run into the nearby woods, the turkeys things took off flying. And not just a 15-20 feet off the ground type of flying. Those crazy things went above the tops of the pine trees, flying away like a flight of black birds in the dove field.
Maybe that’s normal for some turkeys, but its definitely not something I’ve seen before!
All in all, I’d say it was a pretty active and successful weekend, despite a mishap or two :).
Now, if only that cold weather would just come back!