Waterfowl Season 2023-2024

[Mitch f]

@BilletHead

I hunted waterfowl all through the 90’s. Didn’t start getting smallmouth serious until about 1999.
My all time most memorable waterfowl hunt story was at Truman lake. We hunted up the grand river arm in an area called “The slot” it was basically near a railroad bridge. We had to get up at 3:30 am and launch our boat/blind at the Hwy 13 bridge and snake our way through the flooded timber to stay in the river channel to find our way back to the slot in the dark. It was first come first serve to waterfowl hunt there. 
We made our way to the spot and put our decoys out and waited for daylight. About a half hour after daylight a group of about 10-15 mallards ( perfect size group) came in and we whacked em good. My brother wing shot one and it sailed about 200-300 yards away and we saw it splash. My brother decided he was going to get up and go get it, so we just sat in the blind after we picked up our ducks and waited for him to come back. The three of us were watching him come back with the duck in his hand. We were watching him closely and all the sudden he just stops. And gets down on one knee in about one foot deep water. We were puzzled by his behavior and my buddy said “why is he kneeling?” All the sudden from behind us was a group of about 300-400 mallards locked up and headed for our decoys. Some of these mallards were locked up not 20 feet over our heads. Needless to say it sounded like the battle of the bulge. We cleaned up and limited out. But we educated about 350 ducks at the same time! 😂

My brothers comment was “I saw them coming and didn’t know what else to do!”

[curtisce]

I went to truman twice since everything around us was dry. Hunted right in the same area but lauched up in the river. Unfortunately we saw very few ducks but it looked like a great area. Interestingly the river had come up between my visits and the amount of tree debris that coame down the river was astounding. The bridge at the put in was copletely jammed, had to put in on sownstream side and the cut that led to where I hunted the first time had a 100yard log jam blocking it.