Today started off a little rough. It was one of those days that you debate getting out of bed for. According to the weather forecast the night before, there was suppose to be a little to no breeze out of the south meaning my decoys wouldn't be moving much if at all in the water and there probably wouldn't be a big push of ducks coming through. The good news was that they wind was suppose to swing around and come out of the north and just keep picking up all morning. After laying in bed and having the debate in my head, I finally decided on giving it a shot and seeing what happened. I hit a marsh fairly close to home that I hunted during the early teal season and noticed a lot of activity in certain areas that didn't look like they would get hunted much. I decided to give one of these spots a shot. I left Remington home since I knew that I would have to be standing in waist deep water the whole time with nowhere to keep him up and out of it. Needless to say he was not a very happy camper when I was getting ready to leave!
After walking in and flushing up a couple of ducks from the spot I wanted to set up in, I got everything laid out. The spread was set up in a rough "U" with the opening facing north, but with a lot of looseness to enable the ducks to pick a direction since there wasn't any wind. I hid in a small stand of reeds and cattails right next to the spread, just about 5 yards from the landing zone. Some guys who were hunting about 400 yards or so to the northwest of me started off the shooting by dropping a flock of what looked like teal (and happened to be after I talked to them later on). Then I got in on the action nabbing my first drake mallard of the season from a flock that worked into my dekes. We were put on hold for awhile while a few flocks danced around the marsh, but wouldn't commit to the particular spots that we were in.
I had another flock of mallards swing through, but they wouldn't commit all the way, so I took a shot as they swung back through the spread and missed. After standing there for another hour or so and watching the number of flocks drop off little by little, I was able to get another group of 5 mallards to drop into the decoys. From this one I ended up taking a hen mallard after missing the first shot on a drake. Once this little barrage was over, so was the day. There wasn't a flock to be seen, so I decided to pack it in, being extremely happy to have bagged my first drake mallard of the year. There is no real significance of a drake mallard, I just happen to be one of the guys who really enjoys a good mallard shoot as opposed to other types of ducks, so I was glad to see the mallards finally starting to make their way into Nebraska after seeing mostly teal, gadwalls, and widgeon so far this season. It is sure shaping up to be a good one.
C. Dill
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