Today I was scheduled to have the fourth pick at our draw.  It turned out that I got the number two pick, so I chose hole 5 which is a favorite of mine and the group that I hunt with.

 

We had problems right off the bat and it makes you wonder sometimes why we persevere in chasing ducks.  Yesterday we pulled Mark Billing's boat and motor from the North green canal to the South green canal.  In the process a wire on the motor caught fire.  We put the fire out and the motor started and ran.  It ran just fine coming back after yesterday's hunt.  This morning, guess what.  It was totally dead and would not even start. 

 

We found that out after we pulled my boat and Mark's boat over from the South green canal to the North green canal.  So we had to borrow another boat or make two trips with mine to transport five hunters, two dogs, and all of our gear.  Not a problem, Dr. Steve Morrison told me yesterday I could use his boat any time if he was not hunting that day.  So we pumped the water out of his boat, loaded it and away we went finally.

 

It had rained last night complete with lots of thunder and lightening.  Luckily the rain quit and it started clearing just before the draw this morning.  I hunted with David Breedlove, Wes Wright, Mark Billings, and his ninth grade daughter, Emily.  We had a lot of Wood Ducks flying this morning and we shot a beautiful drake just after shooting time.  We had two memorable groups of four ducks fly in this morning.  The first group had three Gadwall hens and on Mallard drake in it.  All of them fell to the guns of my friends.  The second group had four Mallards in it, three drakes and a hen.  The same thing happened to this group.

 

We saw what we think are several new ducks to our area.  We wound up with 17 ducks today, 9 Mallard drakes and 4 hens, 3 Gadwalls, and 1 Wood Duck.  And you know what?  All of us thought the problems we had were worth it after this hunt!

 

More later.