Its the last day of

Its the last day of season...for a waterfowl guide its the most anticipated / dreaded day of the year.

5 days and counting...

Out of the 68 days that comprised the 2010-2011 waterfowl season, only five days remain, and I've got to tell ya, I'm one tired dude.  When duck season ended on January 23rd, we had 8 more days of goose season, three are down, five to go.  Goose hunting is a little more relaxed that duck hunting, more of a gentlemens sport.  Geese wait til a little later in the day to start flying (translated: you don't have to be up hours before dawn preparing for the day's hunt).  On our club, we hunt geese on dry land in grain fields (translated: No more waders, no more breaking ice in the pre-dawn darkness, no more numb hands!!), this affords a hunter to wear his favorite insulated hunting bibs to the field and leave the waders on the wader rack.  FYI, my Drake Waterfowl insulated bibs are like wearing your favorite sweat pants when compared to my 5-mil waders.  So with 63 days of hunting in the books (I've been in the field for 61 of those), I'm ready for some R and R.  I hope your last 63 days have been as great as mine have, so if you call me Tuesday morning at 8am and I don't answer, call back around ten, I might be up by then.  lol.
God Bless,
D

Home at last...but only for a minute

I made it home again, but only briefly.  I didn't have any hunters today, so I made a mad dash home to take care of a couple things that needed some attention.  I can say, that the ducks have come back to Southern Illinois in a fine fashion.  Or at least they have returned to our field.  Monday and Tuesday's hunts were some of the best duck hunting we have had in a week, I think we just might end the season with a few good days of hunting.  There's a fairly big snow predicted for Thursday (Jan 20th), if that doesn't push the ducks back south, then we should have a good end to the season.  Hopefully they'll hang around, it would be nice to end the season on a good note.  That's it for now, hunting season is drawing to a close, and the fishing season is just around the corner.
God Bless,
D

My how things have changed...

My last post talked about how waterfowl hunting had been pretty tough.  Since then, the time of my last post, things have changed considerably.  The Canada goose hunting had been pretty good.  In the last ten days, we have had several days of migrating geese, which increased the number of birds on the refuge by our club, which in turn has allowed for some very good goose hunting.  The last few days we have experienced a pretty significant warming trend, and this has brought the ducks back in a major way.  Today we had an excellent day in the field, with huge numbers of ducks coming into the field..  It was a welcome sight to say the least.