Our opening weekend on the Great Lakes indicated we have more mallards than prior years, as well as more marsh courtesy of a near twenty inch drop in water levels. On the other side of that ledgert, I am glad I added the extra quarter inch of epoxy on my stern lifting pad based on the dolomite cobble I had to cross to get within a quarter mile of shore to hand line the boat in further to set decoys. Next year hopefully the outer marsh will have established well enough again to set-up in a Phragmites sp. stand.View attachment Trenary geese + 2021+ October 1.jpeg
Steve shot well from a good hide and decoy set. I, on the other hand spent opening morning trying to sleep a couple hours after a "Norco Night" from an unplanned slip that really aggravated a bulging disc that needs to be addressed this winter, per my MRI results. I did finally get out around 10:00AM, after most of the morning flight, only to luck into the biggest goose I have ever killed. We did end the day with a two man limit of gift birds and the goose. Blacks, mallards, wigeon, wood ducks, and BW teal for the two days of sitting. Good wind, but no cloud cover..on the way back home I stopped at a large dairy farm that butts-up against an arm of the Whitefish River to the south. Steve C. told me he had nothing in grain other than unharvested corn, so he called his neighbor who had 95 acres of cut oats that birds were using. The weather was too warm, but we had a light ground fog which kept things cool. Steve's brother, Clay, joined Josh, Drew and I, giving us three callers and four guns set-up in 117 decoys, mostly my hand painted Big Foots and Avian-X AXPs with some bastard brands. Hardly any wind and the birds thankfully came early!
View attachment Duck opener 2021 + 1.jpeg
View attachment DSC02889.JPG
Steve shot well from a good hide and decoy set. I, on the other hand spent opening morning trying to sleep a couple hours after a "Norco Night" from an unplanned slip that really aggravated a bulging disc that needs to be addressed this winter, per my MRI results. I did finally get out around 10:00AM, after most of the morning flight, only to luck into the biggest goose I have ever killed. We did end the day with a two man limit of gift birds and the goose. Blacks, mallards, wigeon, wood ducks, and BW teal for the two days of sitting. Good wind, but no cloud cover..on the way back home I stopped at a large dairy farm that butts-up against an arm of the Whitefish River to the south. Steve C. told me he had nothing in grain other than unharvested corn, so he called his neighbor who had 95 acres of cut oats that birds were using. The weather was too warm, but we had a light ground fog which kept things cool. Steve's brother, Clay, joined Josh, Drew and I, giving us three callers and four guns set-up in 117 decoys, mostly my hand painted Big Foots and Avian-X AXPs with some bastard brands. Hardly any wind and the birds thankfully came early!
View attachment Duck opener 2021 + 1.jpeg
View attachment DSC02889.JPG
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