Duck Opener with a nice surprise

birdhunter · 10-20-2003, 12:54 PM

Well it took a little longer to get posted than I would have liked, but here is the result from the opener of duck season. Did a float trip with my buddy Cody and got these 10 mallards. Also brought home this little spike.

Had one of those Willamette addtl. deer tags and had to hem and haw about it for a few minutes before I decided to take him. The buck stood broadside to me the whole time, right at the waters edge. Easiest pack ever. Had to drag him 5 feet and lift him into the boat. Now I know it doesn't even come close to what I killed last year, but mule deer didn't pan out and I needed to put something in the freezer. He tastes a hell of a lot better than the rutted out late season bucks too. Kinda nice. Would have been nice to limit out on mallards but that was our fault, not the ducks. They gave us plenty of opportunities. All in all you can't beat that for a half day float.

That would be my new drift boat in the back too. Great way to break it in.

Lured In · 10-20-2003, 12:57 PM

WHAT????!

No Nutria...?!? Come on BH...you must be slacking off in your old age. :tongue: :grin:

Nice job and thanks for sharing the pic. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

willametteriveroutlaw · 10-20-2003, 02:10 PM

Nice job Ben... :smile: hey ben if you check this out before like 6:00 give me a call. I'll be stuck in bexell until then..

[ 10-20-2003, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: willametteriveroutlaw ]

tag-a-long · 10-20-2003, 02:59 PM

Nice pic, but I can't believe you left the guts in long enough to get it home...

Swamp Puppy · 10-20-2003, 03:39 PM

nice first day!

Get Bit · 10-20-2003, 04:20 PM

Very Nice !!!!

WidgeonWacker · 10-20-2003, 06:38 PM

Nice job on the double combo.

Ducks and bucks who could ask for more. Hey I know its probably a secret but what river did you float. A buddy and I are going to try to make a float trip maybe later this year. Any info would be helpful. Thanks in advance smeltman

Erich_870 · 10-20-2003, 06:47 PM

Thats great Ben!!! Cool to see you and Cody are still hanging out too!

skein · 10-20-2003, 07:13 PM

Glad to see your shoulder is holding up to the shotgun (and rifle). I wuz jest kinda serprised you didn't have a cupple fish to lay out as well. You know, in between fly-bys. :grin:

Nice to see those greenheads in the bag. All I got were teal and widgeon on the opener. And no deer. But it's always good to just be out there.

Fun stuff!

Skein

Flatfish · 10-20-2003, 07:36 PM

I love that much death in one place. A wonderful thing to be a hunter.

Mark and the 2 thumbs and a paw up dog.

birdhunter · 10-21-2003, 07:34 AM

tag-a-log: If I coulda gutted him at the scene, I would have. No good place to gut him where he dropped or to drag him off to before the take out. Didn't really want to send a gut pile floating down river. As it stands, that buck was only an hour dead in the pic. About 10 minutes after that snapshot he was gutted and hanging in the back. No worse for the wear.

Bait O' Eggs · 10-21-2003, 07:50 AM

Looks like fun Ben.

Is the shoulder allowing you to row, or did coot do the grunt work on the sticks while you harvested.

tag-a-long · 10-22-2003, 06:07 AM

Cool,
I can appreciate someone not gutting in the river or right on the bank. Sure looks like you guys did have a good day . Keep the pics of the carnage coming.

Steelhead Hound · 10-22-2003, 07:48 AM

Were did you drift from?????

birdhunter · 10-22-2003, 12:35 PM

Tweedle dum and Tweedle dee,

I rowed the majority of that drift. Shoulder is good enough to shoot and row. All Cody had to do was spot ducks, and shoot ducks. He did that moderately well. I can think of a few birds I saw looking over my shoulder that I had to point out to him. That and the buck. Cody had admittedly pointed out the ducks, but was apparently unaware that there was a deer standing 10 feet from them until I brought it to his attention. It all worked out in the end.

BrotherWolf · 10-22-2003, 06:13 PM

kewl I will have to camo my boat up like that!

Ramstrong · 10-22-2003, 11:47 PM

Hey, That's not the Honk e Dory! But I do recognize the Toyota in the background

Good job guys.

Roy,
Of course Cody was on the sticks. I don't think Ben knows how to row. :grin:

Kentucky Hog Hunter · 10-23-2003, 01:09 PM

Way to go Birdhunter...

That is a nice bonus... Congrats

Fish Slayer · 11-02-2003, 05:30 PM

Birdhunter, I wanna do that with my bow! Nice buck and ducks too by the way! :grin:

[img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]