Didn't hunt the first day of the season, but I hunted sunday. Started the morning looking for teal. I wasn't even sure if I could hunt that morning because I made plans with someone I just met at the dove opener to hunt on sunday and I didn't hear from him the night before and I finally got a hold of him at 3amon Sunday morning. I stopped at 4 am to get a duck stamp at Walmart half an hour away from my spot. And after I bought my liscence I spent an hour trying to get my car to start and finally got to the ramp and my buddy left and I was sitting there cursing his name waiting for him to get back. After about half an hour of kicking myself and not being able to get a hold of him thinking he left me, he shows up at the ramp yellin hurry up let's go. So we hop in his boat and get out to the spot where his other buddy is already setting out decoys. We only saw two birds all morning and got to know each other. Funny side note I was the only one wearing waders that morning and they all got soaking wet because the water went up 6 inches over night. They were only wearing boots that came up to there knees and whenever they would walk they would get water in there boots because the water was only an inch from the top. We sat in a brush pile that was partially submerged drove firmly into the mud with the current ripping. We left at around 10 and in the decoys of the blind behind us was a pair of geese that must have just landed because the boat that was there literally just left not 10 minutes before.
We met at 2:30 for the afternoon hunt with the same buddy. I invited another buddy who had never killed a duck before and said to him watch your first duck is going to be a band. We waded in thru a miles worth of mud flats in a lily pad field and sat until 4:30 in the firmest patch of ground for miles which you still sink around 2 inches into instead of 10. At 4:30 we slowly started seeing them at first it was ones and twos and then it was 50 in the air at once. We killed our first at 4:45 a drake woodie that was landing a foot from the mojo mallard which was 15 yards away in a ditch that ran thru the flat. At 4:57 exactly me and my buddy Dylan who had never killed a duck in his life, shot at a hen woodie at less than 10 yards and she folded. I think I killed her however I said to my buddy go pick up you first duck. He picks it up and yells it's banded. We all yell BS not believing it he brings it over and low and behold she's banded. Took some pics and settled back in. We shot a couple more that dropped and then flew off when we went to get them. All in all one of my most memorable duck hunts not because of the number of birds killed but because of the look on my buddies face when he picked it up. Doing another pm hunt tommorow.
