That's it...

[redhawker]

Well, the day has come. My duck hunting season is over again. Since I can't do Saturday's at this time due to work today was the last opportunity. How did that go? It didn't. I also had to work last night but usually I'll get out to the refuge for a refill hunt as soon as I get up in the morning when I have to work the night before except last night, due to unusual circumstances, at the last minute, I had to work until 4 AM so, although I still would have liked to try it there wasn't enough left in the old body to drag me down to the refuge today. So today I spent the afternoon putting the gear away.

I know some did well this season. Myself, I managed a full limit...for the entire season I mean. Yeah, 7 birds for 9 hunt days, 0.78 average. Worst I've ever done. The reservation gods were unkind, 0.00% on that. The sweat line draw was also poor for us, only got out 2 times in the morning for 6 tries at the sweat line draws, and those 2 were way down at the bottom of the list, like worst blind in the whole refuge area of the list if you know what I mean. It seemed like some people did okay at there, off and on, because we saw some good straps coming in while waiting for a refill spot. We just never found the proverbial "X" this year. Anyway, I'd much rather be out there trying then sitting at home watching TV. I was a good year for pictures anyway, got some great shots, lots of good cloud conditions this year. (here's just a few below)

....8 months, 25 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes to go until next season.

 

[Rick Courtright]

Hi,

Nice shots, RH! For reasons too many to list here, some good, some "poor excuse" quality, I didn't make it out to SJWA at all after the first dove season. They were doing a lot of work on the ponds then, and just starting to fill some of them, and I was wondering what effects that work might have on the birds. But watching the shoot reports from SJWA, IWA--both Wister and Sonny Bono areas--and some WAs further upstate, it didn't look like the best of seasons in too many places.

An old rule of thumb in our group used to be "The worse shape Davis Rd is in, the better the shooting." That first shot makes the road look just perfect! Maybe that 'splains something?

But I did learn something: if one buys their Federal duck stamp online from the post office, which I'd never done before, it comes with a nice 8 1/2" x 11" version of the stamp. So there's something to remember for this year's contribution to the coffers!

Rick C