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John's Journal... Entry 227, Day 4

THE BEST HUNTING-LEASE DUCK HUNTING

Enjoy Waterfowl Hunting

Editor's Note: My family always belonged to a hunting club. The lease included 8,000 acres of excellent deer and turkey habitat and a rich river-bottom swamp with enough squirrels to keep our squirrel dog's tongue hanging out all day. During my senior year of high school, as my dad and I hunted squirrels in a swamp, a huge flight of mallards and wood ducks flew over. We went to the nearby town of Livingston, Alabama, to buy our duck-hunting stamps, and I realized that the University of West Alabama there only was 15 minutes from our hunting lease. I made up my mind that I'd attend the University of West Alabama to study something. While in college, I duck hunted at least two or three mornings a week before class and learned some productive tactics for taking hunting-club quacks. If not for my family's hunting-club lease and that flight of ducks that came in as we hunted squirrels, I might not have attended college. But, I knew if I could stay in school for four years and graduate, I'd have four years of the greatest duck, deer and turkey hunting of any young man in the country.

One late December, I noticed ducks congregating in a freshly-flooded acorn flat on our hunting lease. Mallards, wood ducks, wigeons and one or two pintails had veered off the Tombigbee River flyway and set up camp for about a week on our hunting lease in west/central Alabama. Since late December and January in Alabama meant the bucks had entered the rut, most of the members of our lease completely focused on taking big bucks and didn't care about a big flock of Yankee ducks hoping for suntans in Alabama. Because most of our lease members hunted deer on the weekend, I chose a mid-week hunt for waterfowl, so as not to interfere with the deer hunters. Six of us slipped into the backwaters long before daylight and surrounded the flooded timber. Even before legal shooting hours, the wood ducks began to drop into the red oak, pin oak and willow oak flats. We could hear the woodies whistling once they rested on the water feeding.

Just before the sun started to rise, more wood ducks came in like a giant swarm of mosquitoes. At one time in the predawn light, I had 10 wood ducks within 20 yards of me, swimming and feeding on the floating acorns. The mallards usually arrived after the wood ducks. So, my friends and I all had agreed we wouldn't start shooting until the second flight of mallards came into the timber. At first light, three minutes after legal shooting time, a flock of 20 mallards landed in the timber. I could see three of my hunting buddies squirming, wanting to flush the mallards and take their shots. My friends reminded me of a Labrador retriever's watching a duck fall on the water and waiting for the command, "Fetch." But we didn't have to wait long. Within 45 seconds after the first flight landed, a big flight of about 50 mallards cupped their wings to drop into the pothole. The flooded timber roared with sounds like tanks at artillery practice as we shot the mallards and wood ducks coming in and leaving out of the flooded timber. Before the last duck had exited the pothole, another flight of mallards accompanied by a few stray woodies started in toward us. Once again we fired, and webfoots tumbled from the sky. Within 15 minutes of starting our shooting, we all had our limits.

TOMORROW: HUNT POTHOLE QUACKS SUCCESSFULLY

 

 

Check back each day this week for more about THE BEST HUNTING-LEASE DUCK HUNTING...

Day 1 - Hunting America's Most-Dependable Duck
Day 2 - Gearing Up for Finding the Flocks
Day 3 - How to Jump-Shoot Quacks and Build a Duck-Hunting Hot Spot
Day 4 - Enjoy Waterfowl Hunting
Day 5 - Hunt Pothole Quacks Successfully


John's Journal