I hunted with Mike French for the first time this year. He had his nephew, Cameron, with him and we joined two of his Georgia friends, Bob Shaw and Derral Creswell. They are ardent duck hunters from Martinez, Georgia who hunt every year with Mike. And both are pretty good hunters, I might add.

We hunted on one of Mike's places east of McGehee, Arkansas. It was a flooded field where the water spread out in fingers. Bob and Darral threw out about a dozen decoys and we waited in the brush, short trees, and bushes along the finger we had chosen. Several ducks left when Bob and Darral first arrived, but not too many of them returned after the decoys were in place.

A pair of Mallards flew over and we downed the hen in the field behind us. The drake fell a long way down the finger from us in the water. C. J. used her sense of smell to locate the hen and brought it to me. She looked for the drake, but he had too much life in him to find him. A single Mallard drake flew down the finger right at us. That was a mistake and we downed him without any trouble. C. J. got a run at the water and really jumped out a long ways on her retrieve. She doesn't get to do that retrieving in the timber. A little later a Green Wing Teal flew by and Mike killed the hen with one shot. Very impressive! Those little birds are fast.

We moved the decoys to a point that the ducks seems to like better than our first spot. We only killed one Mallard hen there. Bob found the first Mallard drake in the grass when he parked his four-wheeler after doing some scouting. We wound up with four Mallards and one Teal.

I went to our timber and got set up by 10:30 a.m., stayed to noon and did not see a duck. Very disappointing.

More later,