Duck weather doesn't get any better than this so we hoofed it to our honey hole on the New this morning. Set the blocks, built the blind and settled in for coffee at 6:45. 6:50 and ducks are dropping into the blocks. One of those mornings where your head is on a swivel watching birds pitch in. Only problem was it all happened before legal shooting. My young Chessie was having an absolute fit watching the birds in the dekes. At legal shooting we take the next pair of ducks that float in and splash them both. Jazz makes a nice retreive of the first green head and I send her for the second that is floating quickly away in the fast moving current. A couple handles and she locks on and finishes the job. A retreiver works hard on big moving water like the New. There's a little glitter from the bright orange leg...A Banded Drake Sweet! We settled back into the blind anxious for the next flight. We wait and wait and wait. Nothing moving in the skies that only moments earlier had been peppered with ducks. We never saw another duck all morning.
By 10 the ice was forming on the blocks so bad we had to pick up. It's been a real slow year here so it was an exciting morning but I am really disappointed by the lack of birds we have seen on the flyway this year. Anybody else doing anything?

2gbl

Congrats on the band!
Been a slow year everywhere it seems?

Any morning with some jewelery is a good morning in my book!

At least ya'll are killing a few.I ain't even seen anything the last two hunts I have been on.With everything locked up I think they have moved out,especially since I hunted moving water the last two hunts and haven't seen anything.If it warms up we may get a few birds moving back in.With me back at work I only got a few days left to hunt.Hope everybody has a good rest of the season !!! Oh yeah, congrats on the band !!!! Been hunting 21 yrs and ain't got one yet.

Congrats on the band. Been a few times here in SW Va this season. Had one good evening hunt where we saw quite a few birds. Same place the next evening, nothing. Got lucky I guess when some migrators were looking for a place to set down for the evening. River levels have kept us from getting out on the rivers up until recently. I think the majority of birds came into this area right before the big snow before Christmas. The big snow pushed them on south. Hearing reports from the South saying they've never seen this many birds this early. Any hunt where you get on the water, see a few ducks and return home safely is a great hunt!

Isn't funny how many conflicting reports you can get on duck migration? We loaded up and headed for the North Carolina coast New Years to hunt a 1800 acre farm on the Aligator River near Manteo. This farm is managed for duck hunting. 100 acre impoundments with flooded corn and millet and tons of water. The reports were that the ducks had started to show up Tuesday and Wednesday.
We hit the road in a 4 am snow squall and temps that made me wonder if I was leaving game to find game. The promise of an afternoon hunt on a a big front had us pumped. We rolled in and immediately donned waders and headed for the blinds. Temps were in the 30's with a 25 mile per hour NW winds. We got in the blind at 1 and hunted until sun down and only saw one group of teal and a pair of mallards that obviously had played this game before. No shots fired. Still, we were giddy at the morning prospects. The farm had lots of water and food and a front that should bring birds into the area that night. Shooting light brought clear skies and dying winds. Not my favorite conditions. Mornings in the duck blind are always like Christmas. There is so much prep work and excitement you can hardly wait for the morning to unfold so you can see what it brings. This morning brought wave after wave of swans but no ducks. We had hundreds of the big white birds feeding all around and constantly gliding over the blinds like big 747's Talk about testing the nerves of a young dog. A pair swam to close to the blind and were real surprised when the bush exploded with a flying chessie. She had been as good as I could ask for and I couldn't scold her. We scratched a pair of ring necks and a pintail. The other blind one blue wing teal, one black duck, and a drake woodie. Very few ducks were seen. Where are the ducks? That night we feasted on fillets and fresh oysters off the grill. If our wives only knew how we "suffer" on these hunts. As further evidence of weird duck numbers the NC state DU chairman and a couple buddies rolled into the lodge that evening. They had scouted and were planning a hunt on a public walk in area the next morning. The thought kept going through my mind that hunting must be poor if these guys were taking a chance on public areas, but they had observed enough ducks that they felt good shooting was imminent the next day. We felt good about our chances too as Saturday would bring nastier weather. A call home confirmed temps in the single digits and wind chills in the negative column to the north. The pot hole water would be locked up concentrating birds on big water and more importantly sending some south. We picked a 60 acre impoundment that had not been shot all year. The skies were clear but the wind was howling. At noon we had a drake mallard, one teal and a ring neck to show for our efforts. Two other blinds combined for a pair of ring necks and one teal. Tough hunting for perfect conditions and habitat but I've played the waterfowl game long enough to know that timing is so critical. Here today gone tomorrow. Still, we had a great time with old friends and new. We packed the truck and pointed it north for the 7 hour drive home wondering for 450 miles, Where are the ducks?

Where are the ducks? Been wondering that all season, along with every other waterfowler in the state (except for one or two I've talked with). We were finally able to down our first ducks of the year Saturday morning. If my shooting had been a touch better, we'd have more than the two black ducks we brought home. At least the river levels are down and I can get into some of my preferred spots now . . . who knows how the rest of the season will play out. A few days on the water with a wet retriever at my side is a good thing . . .

Congrats on the band!!

been a strnage year about everywhere east of Arkansas, and evn Ark and Missouri guys are scratchin their heads about the lack of birds. I sort o f thought the big snow in Va and north would have pushed birds to the west early and that the southern applachians might get some birds for a change. did not happen. the word on the street is that east texas is where all the malllards from middle of the country have ended up. I have mno idea where the east coast birds got to. where i live we have had the longest continuos number of days below freeezing (temp never exceed 32 degrees) in recorded weather history. Nine days. ALL TIME record . we ususally do well in cold conditions. Sometimes very well. Not this year on a regular basis. We have killed birds about every day this year and sometimes 10-15 of them, but it is totally unpredictable and inconsistent. Here today, gone tomorrow. Guess Is hould be thankful that we have had some birds filtering through the area throughtout the season, but I was expecting it to be a banner year with this weather and it is sort of average at best here. Friends who own /lease Ark places have had the worst year ever over there; same with Miss. guys. Floods, freezes etc have wrecked them as the birds never showed early, hit there on massive flooding that was impossible to hunt, and then blew out on the current massive cold front. This Global Warming is sure wrecking the duck hunting . :>)

I know where they are!

I'll bite.

Like I'm going to tell that info!! Better luck getting a roosted turkey out of me than a spot holding a pile of ducks!

OK, I missed your extension of an invitation

2gbl

I'd be happy to make an even swap!

Seems all of the big migrators are in the Palmico Sound. Just got back from 8 days of duckin on Ocaracoke Is. NC and hunting was great. Now we had some slow days bc of slick calm pretty weather. But the days it blowed huntin was great and pleanty of ducks there none the less. I had one group come down and hunt Sat the 9th and Monday the 11th. We limited on 3 blinds both days. Brant, Pintails, Blackheads, Redheads, and Widgeon. Probally 10,000 pintails on Howards Reef the past week and several rafts of redheads close to 3-4 thousand in each. Some of the biggest sprigtails I've seen in ten years. Some were almost the size of brant! Big mature birds. Going back down last week for a couple of days. I'm hoping for some good weather.........Blowin a gale 40-50kts, NW, N, or NE and cold!