Tuesday, Taffey ended up with four teal. Today was Daisy's turn.

We had three chances. The first was a single that was just barely nicked. Daisy made a long blind retrieve in open, lunging water. While I was handling her about a dozen "buzzed" the spread and disappeared. The next two chances were potential doubles, but I only got the first one each time. That was it....not a whole lot of action.

Then, the wind really kicked up from the south making where I was at kind of "useless". Three "bluewings" on a suddenly windy Mississippi seemed enough. Luckily, the landing was north and my Carsten Bluebill "surfed" back.

Jim,
What a great opportunity for the dogs! I am glad that you are getting out and having some fun with them.
I love the picture of Daisy with the three blue wings....
She is a good looking hound.
Pat

Nice looking blind you've got there Jim, is it moblie? That's a great pic of Daisy with her birds, seeing any green wings at all?

Good job on the BW's hope to get in to some in the am. and next week. Only a 10 day season for us, I plan on hunting most of it.

Randy, the blind is not mine. In many areas on the Mississippi, hunters draw for designated blind locations. They build and maintain their blinds. If they are not occupied within a half hour of shooting time, anyone can use them.

Teal season does not bring out huge numbers of hunters. Most are weekend "warriors" (have jobs), so us retired hunters pretty much have plenty to choose from. This one seems to be ideal for teal. There are three grass sheets in the blind to close the top down to a one gunner slot. It has a great view. There is a huge expanse of water to the south which appeals to the habits of teal. There are a number of mud flats to draw them to this area.

A friend of mine gave me a little tip about big river fishing. Ducks like to travel up and down the river in a straight line. So if you take a map and draw the best straight lines to travers the terrain, use blinds along these routes for the most concentrated movements. Therefore, blinds toward the middle of the river are better.....except when there is a bend...which happens ofter. Wind factors will shift this some, but it seems to be working.

The "theory" right now is that most of the teal are two pools north of us. Water went down sooner up there. With less pressure and plenty of food they have not moved. That will change soon as lower temperatures will impact their need to migrate. I have not seen a single green wing.

The early season runs from September 6th thru the 21st. For me this is just a sensational time to get all my dogs into some duck hunting. No hunter competition means the pick of blinds. My dogs do not care how "big" the ducks are, and I find shooting teal a serious challenge...besides being a lot of fun.

The only issue is the 180 mile round trip. Not traveling long distances to train and not running any hunt tests this summer has paid off with money saved for gas for the hunting season. The dogs have never once complained.

It's Kooly's turn Monday.

I've heard the same thing about ducks flying in a straight line up and down the river. Though the river I hunt is a whole lot smaller than what you're hunting. It seems to hold true, those spots in the line with a sand bar or island really seem to draw birds on the Platte.

I'm with you on the teal and heck no Pi doesn't give a hoot how big or small they are. Last Saturday while trying to figure out where to set up for the opener, I drove up to a wide spot on the slough and there were two teal sitting on the bank not 10ft from the bumper of my truck. I was reaching for the camera and a dozen or so took off. Pi whined and gave me a look like what are we driving around for? Let's get set up and get after em. We did take 3 half hour or so walks trying for that turkey and set up early saturday calling for them. Had one that worked all around us but we didn't lay an eye on him. Four different covies of quail was encouraging, especially with all the deep snow we had last year.

Teal don't seem to be a big deal around here either. I've been to every sporting goods store in town over the last couple of weeks trying to find some #6 loads for teal. Smallest size any of them carry is #4. So it's either buy a case of #6 from Cabela's or shoot #4. I'm not in a position to buy a case of each so I'll be shooting a bigger shot than I'd like at the little guys. We'll have 3 or 4 guys on the place for the opener, I'll probably have the place to myself around noon Sunday.

I really admire the little guys and love the way they buzz your decoys. They sure are a challenge, If you blink you might miss the whole thing and if you don't follow through on your shot you'll be a day late.

I'm itching to get out of town, get set up for teal and see if we can find a turkey this afternoon despite the constant drizzle were having today. I hope to be on the road noonish, my round trip is about 220 miles, but I'm staying for a while.

I hope Kooly has a great hunt, I know you'll both enjoy the time out regardless of the outcome.

Your teal hunt photos brings back memories from my duck hunting days in IL. Been a while, but we used to wear the teal out. We hunted the Smithland Dam pool in Dog Creek off the Ohio River. Lots of areas where the water broke out into fields. It was always fun to wade the shallows w/o waders, throw out a dozen dekes and just sit on a bucket in the grass. If we had enough rain we could just hunt some of the slews that would back out into the local fields closer to home. Nothing like a flock of teal banking in unison to show all their blue. Wasn't hard to figure out the "bluewing" name. Boy teal are fun.