Season’s Greetings from Capt. Dave & Baymen Charters!

On board for a recent mallard hunt was repeat client, Bob Sacco. Bob has just got into hunting the past few years and has fallen in love with this glorious sport. He has a new bird dog and a new passion in retirement. 

Last year, I guided Bob on a wood duck hunt and he got his very first wood ducks with me. This year, he wanted to try for mallards. So, we picked a date, loaded up the canoe with decoys and gear and headed for duck blind in the pre-dawn darkness.

A very high tide this morning (+1.1) and when the outgoing started, it really made canoeing in the dark a challenge. Lots of fast moving water with a lot of power trying to push the canoe where we did not want it to go. We crashed into two overhanging trees on the way down the river and at one point the tide pushed the canoe sideways. Not my typical mastery as a USCG Captain on the water but we got through it and made it safely to my blind a mile away.

Once at the blind, we had to contend with another problem. The outgoing tidal flow was 4 knots. My decoys were on 12 foot parachute cord leads with 12 oz of anchor. The 4 knot current would easily pick up the weights and tow my decoys out to sea! So, I decided to cut the spread back to just 6 mallards and put the anchor into tall grass tight to the shore and the blind. This gave the anchors something to hold onto and the tidal current could not budge them. Problem solved.

NOTE TO SELF: The late decoy collector, carver, and physician, Dr. George Ross Starr ( our family doctor growing up) always said use at least 16 foot leads with 2 1/4 pounds of anchor and your decoys will hold in anything but a hurricane in our local tidal waters).

Temps this morning were a brisk 29 degrees, but winds were calm. We got settled into the blind and waited for morning to arrive. A half hour later dawn began to break and we began to see our surroundings, no longer in the pitch dark. I have said this many times, but there is just something so peaceful that fills up your soul as you sit quietly in the a duck blind waiting for first light. There is a calm and a peace that comes over you and a feeling that you are now apart from the world and have become a part of nature.That is the best I can do to try and describe it. But when you are in that place it is an awesome experience.

Well, a few mallards and black ducks and geese were moving at first light. Nothing decoying near our spread. So we sat and watched and listened and talked quietly. I tuned up my calls and talked to some geese for some time but they decided to depart and head to their morning feeding grounds miles away. I told Bob to take out his duck calls and we would work on his mallard calling: Lonesome Hen, Greeting Call, Feeding Chuckle, Comeback Call. We had a lot of fun trying to perfect our calling and sounded pretty good with practice. So good in fact, a pair of mallards landed a hundred yards down stream. They eventually got up and flew directly across the front of the blind at 30 yards… BOOM! Bob dropped one of them stone dead with a single shot. What a great shot! The tide quickly scooped up the mallard and carried it down river. I ran for the canoe, shoved off and padded like a mad man chasing after it as it floated down river. I finally caught up to it and put it in the canoe. Then, I turned into the tide and started the paddle back up river to the blind. What a workout! The current felt stronger than ever, and if I paused even once, I would lose all forward momentum and be carried right back down stream…

Back at the blind and working a good sweat even in 29 degrees, I handed Bob his mallard and shook his hand and congratulated him on his first ever mallard duck. That was a special bird that will grace his dinner table later that evening.

Bob got a second duck today as well – a lovely drake Green-Wing Teal. These ducks are very small and very tasty. One of my favorites. Bob and I were quietly talking when I heard the teal quacking down river. It flew up to our blind and landed. I gave a few quick teal quacks and it launched into the air and Bob dropped this teal stone dead as well. Once again, the tidal current took it down river, I scrambled for the canoe and gave chase,  and then back up river I went battling the wicked current. This time I canoed the canoe from the front seat which put more of the canoe down into the water and gave me a little more control and power in my stroke.

The goal of all my duck hunts these days is a brace of birds. That is all I am after. If we get a few more ducks, great. If we get no birds at all, that’s duck hunting. We don’t control nature, we become a part of it for a few hours in a duck blind. Long gone are my days of taking out a full crew and trying to get everyone a limit of birds. That was work back then. As I have gotten older, I have learned to enjoy the simpler hunts, guiding a single hunter, and they are indeed some of the most pleasurable days I have spent in a duck a blind.

Well, Bob and I were very happy with his success. I began the pick up and I sure appreciated having a second paddler in the canoe to help me paddle the mile up river against the ripping tide to a warm truck. I am not sure I would of made it back without him.

Merry Christmas & and Happy Hunting.

Sincerely,

Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, baymenlife.com 31 Years Guiding The Bay. Soli Deo Gloria!