With a current temperature of 9 degrees and a high expected to only be 20, I have to ask myself, why am I planning on going duck hunting?  The water is all frozen with at least 2 inches of ice.  There isn’t any open water except the Willard Bay.  Will there be any ducks that do not have their feet frozen into the ice?

AH!  There is hope!  I saw ducks two nights ago and thousands of swans and even though I do not have a swan permit, they are still fun to watch fly past.  I’ll have my camera and maybe!  Just maybe a mallard will come up to where we are hiding.

Bears Butt

Dec. 2011

We ended up leaving the house about 1 p.m., still very cold outside.  Drove down to the duck club and unloaded the gear.  We used the sled I usually use for ice fishing and loaded all the gear in it for the drag out to where I figured maybe there would be some birds.  It was capped with ice about 2 inches thick.  Wow!  I was not prepared for this.

I thought about putting us up in an old box and I began to bail the ice water out of it as Dry Dog set out the decoys.  I bailed for about 10 minutes and there was more water coming in the box than I was able to get out….bag that idea.

So we settled into sitting on our buckets in a stand of phragmites.  It was the coldest day of duck hunting for me so far this year.  Had to break out a couple of hand warmers that I won at Muskrats “unturkey shoot”,   Thanks Muskrat!

We waited in our blind until the season closed for the day…5 p.m….Well nearly, we were back at the truck, loaded and headed out at 5 p.m….cold and ready for a cold drink back at home.

Birds?  Oh ya, I almost forgot.

We had a flock of 7 geese come over and Dry Dog thought for sure we could drop a couple of them.  Six shots later and a whole lot of pellets hitting birds, but none fell…I reckon we did not have any golden beebees in our shells.  We hit them all six shots, but to no avail.

Then after much sitting here comes a lone duck, skimming the slew like a komokazy(sp) pilot right into Dry Dogs lap…Boom!  Too close a shot to do any good.  Boom!  Feathers flew out the back end!  Boom!  Down it comes!  Good Shot Dog!!!!!!!!

Much later, I’m telling Dog about the bearsbutt.com story of his hunt and the sequence of shots of his celebration and suddenly up he jumps and swings on a duck that has snuck in on us from behind…BOOM…down it goes…Good Shot Dog!

So for all of you keeping score….I shot three times at the geese and got zero birds.  Dry Dog shot a total of 7 shells and has two birds!  Not bad for a guy who has not been out hunting ducks since I took him last some two or three years ago.

Thanks for joining me Dog!

Another fine day, even though it was colder than heck, day in the field!

Bears Butt

Dec. 5, 2011