Last Day of Duck Season

    My brother Wyatt and I headed down to our favorite woodie hole on the North Fork of the Rivanna for a  duck hunt this morning on the last day of the season. We set up 4 mallard decoys, 3 teal, and 2 wood duck decoys (teal obviously aren't here in numbers right now but it gives variety to the spread) about 10 yards away in the river in front of us. Right after shooting hours started, we were caught off guard as a drake woodie zipped into the decoys and before my gun was shouldered he was swimming in our decoys. I shot him with a 3" #4 steel load @1550fps, needless to say he was very dead. 5 minutes later, a single hen woodie landed 50 yards downriver and began whistling. I grabbed my wood duck call and prepared to hit a quick "chip-whoooeeee" to get her to swim in range but before I pressed the call to my lips 5 others landed 45 yards away and began looking nervous, we'd been spotted. I said "cut 'em" and after the smoke cleared, Wyatt managed one drake woodie and 2 got away barely flying...thank you steel shot... Anyways, we didn't see anything for another hour and decided to pack up but right before we stood up Wyatt whispered "OH GOSH". I looked up and saw 2 ducks locked up headed into our decoys, and as I shouldered my gun, I noticed they were hooded mergansers, this wasn't as exciting as ducks, but waterfowl to shoot at nonetheless, and Wyatt shot the drake, I shot the hen.
     We waited another 30 minutes but with no luck, decided to pack up. I waded out, grabbed 2 decoys, brought them back, and set out to grab another pair. As I reached down to grab a decoys, Wyatt loudly whispered "DUCKS!". I looked up and to my dismay there were 7 "big ducks"' locked in on our spread, that I was standing in the middle of! As soon as they circled out of sight, Wyatt and I scrambled for cover and I let the Classic Commander call sing. The ducks continued to work, but the locked up 100 yards up stream, I let loose an incredibly loud and aggressive hail call to keep them from landing, even if it spooks them, they won't be pulling ducks off our spread. That turned them around, and I continued a mixture of quacks, feed chuckles, and short choppy hail calls untill 5 of them went in 60 yards upriver, and 2 continued on into our spread, and I yelled "cut 'em!". Well apparently Wyatt hadn't seen the ducks coming so when I fumbled my hands out of my lanyard and raised my gun up to shoot at the birds as they were leaving, he began to shoot, because he wasn't prepared to shoot. I knocked one down, and he plucked feathers with no success. The bird I shot was a drake (CORRECTION, HEN! After further research, hens have olive bills, and drakes  have yellow/orange bills) black duck, my second on the north fork this season. We hung out for another 30 minutes and finally were able to head out without being interrupted. Another thing I forgot to mention is that the wood duck Wyatt killed was his first duck, how great is a drake woodie for a first! In terms of a Central Virginia duck hunt, this was incredible, and we will definitely be headed back for youth day next weekend. Thanks for Reading!

 

Everything except the hen hooded merganser at the top is in good condition, Wyatt had to let an old 3" BB shell that we use for cripples fly at her because she kept diving when we tried to retrieve her.