Post by ispfowler on Dec 19, 2007 20:29:17 GMT -5
Monday afternoon I scouted an area on the river system that was holding good numbers of ducks and geese. The main river channel was ice free, and the shallow areas where less than a 1/4" thick.
Tuesday morning the ice couldn't have gotten that thick, right? I mean, we're talking less than 12 hours ago it was practically slush. All we had to do was take the boat from the launch to the other side of the river, and then we would be smooth sailing in the main river channel.
I told my buddy, we'll just head up the river a ways to where I've been seeing all the birds. We'll throw a few dekes on the edge of the ice, and the rest in the river. Sweet, let’s do it!
Well, apparently it was colder than what I thought it was going to be. We ended up cracking through about 2-3" of ice. IT WAS BAD, but it was the last day of ducks and we were determined to get to the flowing water. So we pressed on.
We get to the other side of the river, and never end up finding the open water. Where did it go?? The ice got a little thinner (some very small pockets of open water), but it definitely wasn't flowing. The entire thing was pretty much locked up. What the freak are we gonna do now??? Well we finally found a small pocket of water along side an island and decide to set up camp.
We got the decoys looking good, got set up, and were ready for every bird to flock to the open water. Its gotta be good, right?
Well, we didn't see the first flippin bird. A half hour before shoot time we hear some whistling wings overhead. We thought it was gonna be dynamite. Nope, nada, nil, nix, zip, nothing, scratch, goose egg, and duck egg for that matter. Are first shut out of the season, and it ends up being on the last day of duck season. Get this, my wife says, "I told you not to go"
Ok, have I dramatized it a little too much? Sorry. Well here are some pictures of the mess. The ice might look like slush, but it is FAR from it. It was rediculously thick for a 18 foot duck boat to be cutting it up. I guess it makes a story that you won't forget. I hope you guys did much better.
Oh, I forgot. The river current ended up packing the ice that we broke on the way out so tight together it was like breaking it up all over again on the way back.
Here is where we launched the boat (you can see the path across to the other side.
Here is are decoy spread (the Mallard fullbody's were on the edge of the water initally). After we broke through ice to get around the island all the broken ice filled in where the water was. Hence, no water around the ducks
This is a picture of us heading back after the spectacular hunt. It ended up being a 2 mile round trip for the Icebreaker team.
Tuesday morning the ice couldn't have gotten that thick, right? I mean, we're talking less than 12 hours ago it was practically slush. All we had to do was take the boat from the launch to the other side of the river, and then we would be smooth sailing in the main river channel.
I told my buddy, we'll just head up the river a ways to where I've been seeing all the birds. We'll throw a few dekes on the edge of the ice, and the rest in the river. Sweet, let’s do it!
Well, apparently it was colder than what I thought it was going to be. We ended up cracking through about 2-3" of ice. IT WAS BAD, but it was the last day of ducks and we were determined to get to the flowing water. So we pressed on.
We get to the other side of the river, and never end up finding the open water. Where did it go?? The ice got a little thinner (some very small pockets of open water), but it definitely wasn't flowing. The entire thing was pretty much locked up. What the freak are we gonna do now??? Well we finally found a small pocket of water along side an island and decide to set up camp.
We got the decoys looking good, got set up, and were ready for every bird to flock to the open water. Its gotta be good, right?
Well, we didn't see the first flippin bird. A half hour before shoot time we hear some whistling wings overhead. We thought it was gonna be dynamite. Nope, nada, nil, nix, zip, nothing, scratch, goose egg, and duck egg for that matter. Are first shut out of the season, and it ends up being on the last day of duck season. Get this, my wife says, "I told you not to go"
Ok, have I dramatized it a little too much? Sorry. Well here are some pictures of the mess. The ice might look like slush, but it is FAR from it. It was rediculously thick for a 18 foot duck boat to be cutting it up. I guess it makes a story that you won't forget. I hope you guys did much better.
Oh, I forgot. The river current ended up packing the ice that we broke on the way out so tight together it was like breaking it up all over again on the way back.
Here is where we launched the boat (you can see the path across to the other side.
Here is are decoy spread (the Mallard fullbody's were on the edge of the water initally). After we broke through ice to get around the island all the broken ice filled in where the water was. Hence, no water around the ducks
This is a picture of us heading back after the spectacular hunt. It ended up being a 2 mile round trip for the Icebreaker team.
