Bill Doshier, Bud Grisham, and I pulled my boat over from the north green timber to the south and went to hole 13 this morning. It was a beautiful, blue bird, day in the timber, but our ducks are busy elsewhere.

About 9:00 a.m. we had the screens down on the blinds when a pair of Mallards appeared from the right side of the blind. Luckily the sun was directly behind us and they didn't see us. They made two circles and dropped into the hole from behind the blind. Bill took the hen on the left side and crippled her. C. J. had to swim most of the way across the hole and finally caught the hen between dives.

Bud and I shot at the greenhead and we drew a lot of feathers, but he managed to fly off at just above stall speed to die somewhere. We should have had him in the bag, but didn't get the job done.

About 10:00 a.m., three Mergansers dropped into our hole. Bill and Bud shot at them and the only casualty is shown on our attached pictures. Bud missed the Mergansers, but got my duck instead. Bill just missed everything this time.

Around 11:00 a.m. we saw shadows on a big tree across the hole from us. Then three Mallards appeared over the hole, coming from behind us. Before they could finish a circle of the hole, another three ducks joined them. Since all three of us hunters were in the blind, it was hard to track the ducks. The next time I saw ducks, four of the six had left and only a pair continued to work our hole. Those two came in from behind the blind. We didn't throw the screens down to shoot them when they were directly in front of us, thinking the others might be following them. That was not the case and those two continued on to our left and landed outside of the hole. Bill got the only shot off from the left end of the blind, crippled the drake, and by the time C. J. could chase him, he managed to escape.

This is a lot of writing to say we brought one Mallard hen home with us today and took my drake robo to the emergency room. I'll let you know if he survives tomorrow.

More later,