The Bare Facts for Ducks:

Location: A very small, postage stamp piece of private property just west of my house. It is a beaver swamp with 2 creeks running around a little island split in two by water.

Gun: My Greener 3 inch, 12 bore, choked Improved Modified in the right barrel and Full in the left barrel. The gun is double trigger of course, with 32 inch barrels and straight hand stock, and is an extractor gun. His name is Richard.

Load: 3 inch, 1 3/8, No. 5 copper plated bismuth. The load is manufactured by a company out of Michigan named BOSS.

Waders: Banded Elite 2.0.

Ducks Targeted: Some of you may have read, I went on my first waterfowl hunt this September. I took a one man daily limit of Canada, apparently do not call them Canadian, Geese during that hunt with my 3 inch Merkel 50E/122E. This hunt I was targeting Wood Ducks and Black Ducks.

Ducks killed: Wood Ducks

Ducks Seen: Black Ducks Yes, I know Black Ducks are most likely hybrids. I also saw Wood Ducks.

MY FIRST DUCK HUNT:

Sometimes being me has few advantages in life. I fully recognize that I am blessed or privileged. This time the blessing paid off in that I was able to locate a small piece of state land open to hunting just off a state highway that we happed to construct. The area sets in between 2 homeowners on the left and two home owners on the far right. The entire swamp is hardwoods growing out of a beaver swamp with a large creek that splits into a Y around one island that is again cut into two small piece as and a larger, yet still small wood lot just across. I went down two days before the opening day of Duck season which is Thanksgiving day. I saw a bunch of Wood Ducks, too many to count, and a ball of about thirty Black Ducks. Strange, to me is the ducks flew in at the same time, but landed and stayed segregated from one another. That day the water was up substantially as we had three days of rain.

I had asked to collective wisdom about what waders to purchase. The response was do not waste your time. Well, now I could tell I would need waders. I head to Lexington after work on Wednesday and headed to Sportsman’s Warehouse. I dreaded having to buy Cabela branded waders. Apparently, the only object more continuous than wearing a mask for Covid is what waders to buy. The best I could tell SportsMan’s Warehouse had were Banded 2.0 Elites. Sportsman’s Warehouse had one pair left. They fit, were 70 percent off, and I bought them. I had no issues with them on this hunt.

I laid my gear out the night before. The waders have a large, more or less, waterproof Velcro pocket the width of the wader’s chest across them. I say more or less because if one were to submerge up to the chest, contents are getting wet. I filled a large zip lock bag with about 20 rounds of the BOSS. I got my small gear, like my gloves, face mask, wallet, and duck stamp, situated in the water proof zip pockets.

I went to bed early only to be called by Father in Law at 11:00 p.m. over something urgent. I remember looking at the clock, “Four hours to go.” The alarm clock went off, “Why is the alarm going off today?”

“You are going to go duck hunting today.” My wife reminded me. I must say, she was very polite about it.

The swamp sets down a steep bank below the road. There is a guard rail there. I straddled the guard rail, flipped both legs over the right side, stood up, and started walking sideways down. Under the leaf litter, I could feel the odd beer bottle, Coke can, rolling out from under my feet. “I sure hope these wader boots have steel soles.”

The water level had dropped a good deal. I was able to walk on dry ground. The land of the bank started to bend into the creek, or at the junction of the v and stick of the y around the little island split in two. I broke some samplings so I could see over them, and stacked the limbs up in front of me. I was sitting looking over the water, up on the start of the hill. I unzipped the case around the Richard. I took Richard by the hand with my right and held him barrels pointing down at the water with the side safety facing up to the sky. I put on my mask with my left hand. I shoved my left hand in my waders inside, fleece pocket and into a pre-staged glove.

I heard a jake turkey sound off. Poor bird, must be transitioning into a rooster. Then a few hen turkeys yelping down somewhere fare back, across, and to the right of me. I may be wrong about this, but my memory says legal shooting light was a good 6:45 in the morning. Some reading lad, like myself, my look up the legal shooting light in Eastern Kentucky on November 25, 2021 and realize that is wrong information. He may even damn me as a poacher. The young person’s vigor shall be soothed. I sat down at 5:30 in the morning. The ducks arrived at 7:15.

At first, I heard geese. I had not seen geese in here and would not today. Then I heard a quack, quack. Next, three ducks flew in. Two landed to my left between two dead trees that were broke off about six feet above the waterline I could only see them when they bobbed up and down. The next landed closer to the bank at my right closer than those two. I remember this bird had a bright white belly, that I could see regardless of whether he was sitting still or not. A third landed right in front of me. He was close enough I never lost his outline in the dark background, I could see white upper chest when he turned to me. He was smaller than the close one to the right. I felt my back arch like a cat contracting the spring for a pounce.

To my left, in the creek, I heard a noise sounding like a airplane had landed on the water. The roll more or less, shielded me to the left. I saw a bird, much larger than the four in front of me fly to my left to right not 5 yards in front of me. The bird banked and flew the same way right to left. I saw a purple patch on the wing. This bird was very large. He landed in the creek. When he flew over the ducks in front of me started to get up. So, I pulled the left hand out and brought Richard up to my face with my right hand. Two of the small ducks were at 11:00 o’clock position going across and away. I had a gap between two trees. I fried both triggers. Down came two birds. I do not remember taking the safety off. These were not far shots; maybe 15 yards. The birds dropped writhing 3 feet of one another. The bigger one had gotten in front of the one that was right in front of me. He was to the left, with the smaller one, that had been right in front of me behind him. I never saw any of the ducks to the left in the creek get up.

I pushed the top lever back with my thumb holding it at the full end. The cross bolt came out. I tipped the barrels up, and the first two shots I have ever fired with Richard fell to my right. I reloaded, closed Richard, put the safety back on with my left index finger. I went back to the position I was in prior to the ducks arriving. I listed for about 15 minutes. I could here big ducks quacking, Wood Ducks making the sounds Wood Ducks made. Nothing landed in. So, I got up to cross the water, and see what my first two ducks were.

The water in front of me could not have been six inches deep. There looked like a loose weave of brown grass on the top, but balding. Well, I stepped down into the water. I sunk to my knee. I slung my left hip forward and sunk to that knee. Now, I looked like a man in winter clothes that had frozen in a running position. Somehow, I got to the ducks without falling face first. I could reach them with either arm. I turned around and walked back in the tunnels I had made in the muck on the way in. I must say the waders dried fast and my feet were not wet.

About an hour later, I saw two birds flying from my left and overhead. One bird kept going to the other wood lot. One dropped into the creek. I laid over the little hill, and let the left barrel have the head of a duck. I got up to that one much easier. A hen Wood Duck. The daily one man limit on Wood Ducks is three. I moved around the bank setting up where I could see down the creek. There was a little exposed sand bar right in front of me running about twenty feet down the creek. The water got deeper at the end of the sand bar. I would listen to quacking, watch Wood Ducks flying down in the other wood lot. About thirty minutes later, I saw big ducks coming what looked like off my bank 40 yards down the creek into the water in a line. I could not tell what kind of ducks they were, but they were very big. Very, in comparison to my Wood Ducks. The line acted like they would swim down to me, but they turned and headed around the bend to the other side wood lot. I thought about crossing and jump shooting them.

“Naw, I will come back, besides what I really wanted was a Wood Duck.” The time was 9:30. A friend took pictures, and helped me pluck the Wood Ducks.

The first wild duck I ever ate was a Drake Wood Duck breast, seared rare in a cast iron skillet with butter and canola oil, salt and peppered before dropping in the skillet. That was two years ago. Capt. Pruvis son, who is on here, gave me that bird. Two things, struck me. First, Wood Ducks are, to my eye, much more beautiful than any Mallard. Mallard’s all look the same, Wood Ducks are unique, colorful, and vibrant. These two drakes had dashes of orange through out the head, wings, and tail. My wife, looked picked up a wing, staring at it, turning it, “How beautiful. Second, that first Wood Duck tasted better than beef. That was when I decided I needed to start hunting waterfowl.

The three Wood Ducks are plucked. I cut the breast, thigh, and leg out in one piece with the skin on. I brined them for eight hours in sea salt, before my wife took them out, pated them dry and vacuum sealed them to share with my family who are traveling over Thanksgiving. I say my wife had to do this, because after eating Thanksgiving Diner, I was headed out for Western Kentucky and deer hunting.


BUCK ONLY
The Bare Facts of Bucks:

Location: Western Kentucky. We have a small 500 acre lease I am part of.

Rifle: USRA, Winchester Model 70 Classic Custom, 35 Whelen. Here name is Natalie.

Load: 225 grain Nosler Accubonds (my favorite) averaging 2700 fps, over 3,500 foot pounds at the muzzle, sighted dead on at 250 yards.

Game Killed: One buck

Game Seen: One Buck

Weather: The temperature was 19 degrees with about a five mile an hour wind, a very heavy frost. There was not a cloud in the ski. I am told folks in Michigan have a word for weather like this, Summer. I call it COLD. I have had the same boots since I was 14 years old. I did not get cold.

I HATE TREE STANDS

An American Folk hero was once reported to say, “I hate snakes!” I had the following quote on November 27, 2021 at 4:00 in the morning.

“I hate tree stands. I hate them Daryl!” Folks, I hunt with think it is the height that bothers me. Truth is the height I can get over to a certain degree. What I cannot stand, is I will climb up to the start of the last ladder, but I cannot bring myself to climb on up. This is because one no longer has any rail to hold onto. One has to climb up past the rail, let go of the rail, grab the tree, or frame of the stand, let go with one hand lower the seat, step up, and turn around with nothing to keep one in. The whole time the ladder is shaking ever so slightly, but shaking none the less. It does not matter if the latter is 10 feet, 14 feet, or 20 feet. I cannot deal with the last portion.

We decided I would hunt a bottom. The very bottom is more or less tear shaped, but instead of the wide part being rounded it is square. A large, deep banked creek runs across in front of me. The bank is across that tops into a cut corn field. We planted a white clover food plot in the square. There are five tree stands on this tear drop. I am in none of them. One has to walk down to get to the bottom. I got in the timber and found a tree about shoulder wide and got comfortable. I am looking down at the food plot to my right thought a screen of dead stuff, there is a large trail coming from behind the back edge of the tree line level with the back of the food plot right up to me. My left has a sting of ciders behind me running 500 yards of an old fence row, open hard woods adjacent to the fence row. This stops at a clear cut that is cut for power line poles. Daryl is next to me to my left and behind.

At six in the morning, I hear a hoot owl start, then another. The two owls must be mates because the flew together into a tree in front of me. I watched them for the next ten minutes glide from one tree to the next until they must have arrived home. The squirrels sure were glad they were gone. We had a high rise, 3 year old, eight point on a trial camera just inside the tree line behind the food plot in here everyday this week for at six in the morning. I had the fire dot on low: six o’clock came, seven o’clock came, seven o’clock came, I heard a raccoon, eight o’clock came and brought one squirrel. Daryl decided to go back to the top and get into a tree stand up there to watch up there. I could see his orange hat in the tree. He waived at me.

The wind had swirled once or twice, but the wind had been perfect otherwise. Nothing had blown at me or run out. Of course, there had been noting come through to blow at me. Daryl texted me, “That buck was in there an hour before we got there.” He sent the trail camera picture.

I thought “Good to know.” Nine o’clock came. I got another text, “I am going back to the truck.” Daryl had killed a 150 inch buck earlier that year. I missed that buck the Saturday of the first muzzleloader season. Daryl had cut him the weekend before me with his bow. I killed a doe straight to the ground, not even a kick, with my open sight muzzleloader, reloaded, and watched that 150 inch buck walk right up to that dead doe. He looked at me as I mounted my muzzleloader. I missed. I blame the miss on a ponding migraine.

So, here I set. Nine o’clock on the coldest day of the year with two owls and a few squirrels, “Still early thought.” I swear the later it got the colder it got. The only thing exposed were my eyes, and they felt like the moister was freezing.

I had about eight o’clock moved to the right the tree. I just had a feeling after nothing had walked up that trial early in the morning that if anything came, it would come from the brush that grew out of the creek into the timber going up to the power line or from the power line down into the creek. Anything walking up I could see early, but would have a hard time shooting. The only gap would require me to twist right against myself, but I figured you had to see him first.

The sun was directly to my left. The sun finally got high enough to light the thicket below me where the wood line, field, and creek meet. I never saw an actual antler. I saw light on antler and movement. I got Natalie to the gap. Nothing ever stepped in. I waited and nothing. I brought my head off the scope and relaxed my poster so I was on my left hip, but twisted with Natalie in my hands still looking at the gap. I am looking in to the ticket. “Did he bed down, did he turn and go up to the cut field. I did not hear him leave, but I did not hear him come in?”

I saw legs at the edge of the thicket. I saw a tine as he lowered his head to eating acorns. I put my head on the stock. His shoulder baled was covered by tree. I hugged the line. I fired. He started turning in tight circles. As he spun I fired again. He fell forward and pushed himself behind the tree that had covered his shoulder blade. He must have turned because I saw his throat patch on the ground.

I came off the rifle and called Daryl. “Killed him. Awful thick. I have no idea what kind he is, but we got him.” I laid the phone down and started to walk to him. I got over there. The shot was 100 but less than 110 yards. There is nothing, no hair, no blood, no dear, there is not even a trial. I start walking I am seeing nothing. I came to a drainage at the part I am at it is a depression, but it opens up as it runs down. I look down it nothing. I climb to the power line, and walk a square back. I find nothing. Daryl is standing there.

Daryl, “Where is he?”

“Daryl, I do not know. I shot that deer twice. I shot him to the ground. That deer is dead.”

“Let’s go back to the where you were set up. I will have you walk me from where you were to where he was.”

We did that. Daryl got to a gap. “I do not see anything. I walked to him. “I hit that deer twice. I could have shot him a third time, but did not because his head was sideways on the ground.” I am not yelling. I am speaking in a desperate, but definitive tone, because I knew that deer was dead. I start out this time instead of going up. I going straight back. I stop every so far and get on my knees looking under dead new growth, saw briars, and down the drainage. I got to where the wood lot starts to rise to the cut corn field. I sat down. I look down at my rifle. I was shooting quarters at 100 yards the week before. I know we killed him. I looked around me. “It is as if the ground swallowed him whole.”


“HEEEY LOWE.” I heard Daryl hauler. He did not sound like he had hauled, but he had too reach me. I could tell, it was not an excited voice. I made my way over to him. I whistled when I crossed the drainage. I whistled, and he waived. I came to him below him. He is just standing there.

“I hit that deer twice.”

“You were off by thirty feet.” He just pointed at a tree. I looked at the tree. The ground and tree were covered in blood so red, it looked like red paint you use to see in Westerns. The buck was just ahead. I was thirty feet above where I had shot him.

The Accubonds had entered high behind the shoulder blade going down and in on a quartering to angle. They both exited behind the ribs taking the guts out with them. The offside had split open. The inside had nothing to pull loose. Everything was liquid. I just cut him, lifted his head, and let it pour out. He was a broken two year old six point. Daryl checked his pictures he saw he had come in with the three year old eight an hour before we got there in the dark. Mine and the eight got caught on camera sparring. The six came back and left with me. The eight will be bigger next year.

The doe and this buck gave me a great freezer this year. I am having the lease over on December 18, 2021. I am going to cook venison bolognese and venison steaks with a cream, Cognac, pepper corn sauce for everyone.

Excellent write-up. Those BOSS shells are really something. I'm an avid waterfowler and I just got my first case of them. After shooting them on a few hunts I think I'm ready to sell my cases of other loads. Congratulations on your success!

Before you know it you'll have 100+ decoys, layout blinds, several duck boats, different waders for different conditions, a thousand dollars in calls, and oh so much more. But your hunts won't be any better than the one you just had.

Overland: Thank you for reading and the reply