Early Teal Season - Curtiss Dill

Our early teal season opener here in Nebraska had high expectations after scouting the marsh we were going to be hunting. After looking everything over, we determined that there were probably close to 1,000 ducks sitting on the water, with more than half of them being blue-wing and green-wing teal. We decided upon a course of action for the next morning and went home to get the gear ready and get some sleep. Come 3:30 the next morning, we were up and headed out to the spot we picked the day before. We got in at about 5:00 am and got our decoy spread that consisted of a half dozen teal decoys and a few drake and hen mallards. Now we were in for the wait.

Nothing beats the anticipation of listening to ducks quacking all around you and the whistle of wings over your heads in the darkness of morning waiting for shooting time to roll around. We could hear ducks everywhere and decided that we were probably in for a good morning. After checking and rechecking our guns and hiding spots, and making sure Remington (the dog) was situated, we hurried up and waited some more. Finally, the sun started coming up and we could see flock after flock of ducks circling the marsh and more headed in behind them.

Then it happened. The opening shots of the morning. We kind of have an unspoken rule, that we are never the first ones to shoot in the morning unless there is no one else in the marsh. We like to just sit and watch what the birds do and how they react, then we will start the hunt. We only had to wait for about 5 minutes before we had a flock of about 10 teal swing by our spread. After watching them circle for a minute and determine that they were definitely not going to drop into the dekes, my father-in-law started firing. Since they were closer to his side of the spread, I didn't fire, but instead just watched everything unfold. Out of that flock, he dropped one that came crashing down into the weeds. Remington immediately saw the duck fall and noticed the splash as it hit the water. He was chomping at the bit to go after it, so I released him for the retrieve. We were then able to witness one of the most beautiful sights that occurs when duck hunting, a determined retriever going after a downed bird. Rem went crashing through the weeds and water until he got to the spot of touchdown. He broke down and started searching the area, and not long after that, came up with his first duck of the season, not to mention his first duck ever! The look in his eyes was priceless as he brought back his trophy.

The rest of the morning was perfect. We didn't get a limit (2 short), but we had a great time. Ducks were everywhere, the dog was working hard, and we were missing a lot of shots and managed to drop a few, but it was all in fun. After it was all said an done, we had 5 blue-wing teal and 1 green-wing teal in the bag and both agreed that this was a great start to another duck season.