Huniting Ducks in late October.

Last week I decided to go out hunting on Wednesday the 24th of October. On my way out to the field I didn't see a lot of ducks and no geese, to be honest with you it wasn't looking really good for bagging any ducks.

I decided to try out my old faith full hunting spot, there will be no directions or GPS reading on this one. Too many people seem to know about his place now. I thought God I hope no one is hunting there already. Obviously it's not out of the ordinary for someone to be there already and it was already 2:30pm in the afternoon. So I pulled into my usual place and there was already someone out there parked and standing by his vehicle. I thought ah crap, but I decided to find out what this guy plans for the evening hunting was going to be. I asked him what area he was planning on hunting.

The guy said, "it is a long story; I was on my way up to hunt in Canada but ended up getting turned away at the Canadian border because I had gotten a charge on my record when I was in college" This guy went on to tell me how he was going to go back to Maryland and fly out of Grand Forks, ND today. But after consoling with some buddies of his back home and destinations unknown, he decided why not go hunting in North Dakota because he was already in some of the best duck hunting country. I wish everyone didn't know that. That is for another discussion.

To speed the story up; I ended up hunting with Dave from Maryland. It ended up being a really positive experience. Dave turned out to be one of the more knowledgeable duck hunters that I had ever had the pleasure to hunt with. Basically I just sat back and learned a few things about the trade. The guy was crazy about diving ducks, and I explained how the duck of choice in ND was Green Head Mallards.

We also discussed the web page that he frequents, Duck Boat Net I checked it out the other day and it is just the opposite of duck hunting in North Dakota. The locals in the state are very anti-duck boats. Which most of us in North Dakota knows, always ends up being the discussion about how in North Dakota people don't hunt with duck boats that much and refer to it as the yearly fall boat parade, and blue license plate syndrome. I told him about how there is not a lot of love for guys that come to North Dakota pulling duck boats. I am totally against the idea. I have actually started to look at boats and may purchase one in the future my biggest game stopper is I don't have a place to store one...

Here is a pictures of some of Daves work as he turned out to be a decoy artist and he paints and carves cork decoys. I don't know about you but I would never want to take them hunting because I would be affraid to scare them.

Bagged some Divers

On the day we ended up shooting a blue bill, golden eye, shoveler and a red head. Talk about a mixed bag. That is the first time that I have ever been on a hunt that a bag included a golden eye, talk about a beautiful duck.