I had planned to hunt with Mike French again this morning. Mike called about 4:30 a.m. and he sounded like froggy. He had a sore throat and couldn't and shouldn't go hunting this morning. So I went to plan B which was to hunt our place at Winchester again.

Wayne Owen had the only other group there this morning. As usual he was gracious and let me join him and his Louisiana group of four this morning. We went to hole 13, but did not like the looks of it because of the oily film on the water there. We think it is caused by all the leaves falling in the water and deteriorating there. From there we went to hole 9 and set up.

Nothing happened until about 8:00 a.m. Three Gadwalls circled our hole, but only one committed and fell in the hole and was shot very quickly. Later in the morning a pair of Mallards worked our hole. We had an opportunity to shoot them two different times, but we were trying to light them on the water and let them go without shooting. Greed got the best of us again because they landed, but it was outside of the hole from us and we didn't get a shot at them.

Later in the morning the wind shifted and we started to move the decoys from the north end of the hole to the south end. One of Wayne's guests said the same two Mallards were still outside of the hole and that we should try to get close enough to shoot them. Three of us slipped to the edge of the hole and shot. We killed the hen and broke a wing on the drake and the chase was on. I chased him until I couldn't go anymore and at that time one of the Louisiana boys shot at him again. Wayne's dog, Crook, was with us and finally saw the drake. It didn't take Crook long to catch him for us after he saw him.

We thought the sun would come out, but it never happened this morning. Maybe tomorrow will be the day.

More later,