Early Season Duck Hunt

     This morning I went duck hunting with my brother and two of our friends. We hunted the (classified) river near our house. Yesterday, my brother and I hunted before school and killed 3 wood ducks in the half hour we had before we had to head home and catch the bus. We then got 2 from the same spot that evening. Today we set up in the exact same way, since all of the ducks were coming to the pool we hunted because of some sort of plant growing on the banks that had a seed on it that they liked (I still can't figure out what it is). Legal shooting hours started at 6:50 this morning, so we set up about 10 minutes before that. Birds didn't start flying until about 7:00 because of cloud cover, and we saw piles of woodies in those crucial 15 minutes of flight time. We managed to bring down 5, and one got swept away in the current before our lab could get it. We did a lot more missing than we should have, but that happens with wood ducks, they are super fast, change direction constantly, and pop out of nowhere from behind the trees giving a very small window of opportunity.
      My friend and I floated a stretch of river above where we hunted to try and flush some birds and push them to my brother and his friend. We probably saw 50 or 60 wood ducks and 5 or 6 teal in 2 hours, and only got a shot at a few groups. The river rarely bends/turns so the ducks spot you from 100 yards away and usually spook before they are in range. We brought down 4 ducks and lost two of them because of heavy current and lots of log jams for the birds to get stuck in. We ended up pushing a few birds past my brother and his friend, and they got one hen woodie. After we met up with them, we went back to the house to regroup. We had 7 woodies total and could still take 5 more. So my brother and my friend went back down to the river and floated a stretch below where we hunted and ended up killing our remaining 5 wood ducks! Hopefully we will be able to hunt the last day of the 4 day early season this Monday, as of now the plan is to set up where the teal were today (mixed in with 20-30 woodies) and try to get a couple of those! Thanks for reading!

 My friend Kevin and I heading down the river 

 This one was in the best shape for a picture 

 It rained all day so the birds are pretty wet and not that good looking, but they are ducks nonetheless!