Zoom, Zoom.

[jdmidwest]

Dawn broke this morning with me standing knee deep along the edge of a lake in the St. Francois Mountains in a makeshift willow blind. We had the lake to ourselves and all was calm and peaceful. We had a few woodies buzz us early but they did not dump into the decoys to give us some live motion. 20 minutes after shooting hour, my buddy decided the flappy wings were in the wrong spot and went out to adjust. Then came the sound of a low flying jet and a flock of teal dropped in to say hello, with my buddy out of the blind and out of my sight. His son knew where his dad was and he took a shot, missed. I held back for safety reasons.

Back in the blind and sun came up over the hill. Another loud roar, one dumps into the dekes, the rest of the flock lands long in a cove behind us. The son takes the one in the dekes, the flock gets up and circles out into the lake. A few calls brings them back straight at us, out of the sun and fog. We managed to pull one out and sailed another into the densely wooded hillside about 200 yds out.

Then it was over. We had a few woodies come and go, a shoveler hen, and 3 grebes. A marsh hawk tried to grab one of them. A bald eagle paid us a visit. We finally left out at 11 and called it a season.

Last weekend sucked, Sat. morning brought a few big ducks that had spent the night on the lake passing thru. No teal that day. Sunday morning there was another party of six set up about 100 yds down the bank from us. About 30 minutes BEFORE sunrise, they blasted off 4 rounds and we watched 2 woodies fly out. There had been 4 woodies using that cove the day before. They must have been shooting at snipe or rails and flushed out the woodies, since Teal does not start till sunrise. Nothing else that day.