When most people think of Thanksgiving, they think of turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. I must be the exception to the rule. When Thanksgiving rolls around, I think of cold mornings, hot coffee, whistling wings, and the boom of my shotgun.
For the last several years, the wife and I have made the pilgrimage to Western Oklahoma to see her folks for turkey day. I try to squeeze in a few days of duck hunting with an old college buddy while we are out. He kinda has a monopoly on all the local property in the rural Butler are which includes several farm ponds and government watershed ponds. They tend to hold a lot of waterfowl, so we tend to hunt them and kill a few.
Mr. Ramsey and I decided to hit up one of our holes that we don't hunt much in order to save 1 of our honey holes for when we has another gun or two in the blind. The first morning was pretty slow, birds just weren't flying around very much but we scratched out our 2 man limit with some diver ducks and a few gaddys. Got to see a hawk try to pick off one of my mallard hen decoys late in the morning as well. It was quite the sight. Afterwards, we made a quick scouting run around to our other holes and found the birds huddled up on bigger water. Thanks to deer hunters though, those holes were tied up till rifle season is over. Talk about a kick in the sack...
The next morning, we hit up our honey that always pulls a ton of puddle ducks to it. I'm talking mallards, pintails, and widgeon...oh my! They were there alright. They poured into that sucker all morning, just not into our decoys. We got enough birds to come in or give us a passing shot to knock some down. It was a good morning, getting to see all those birds come in and work. Very cool...
The last day was a wash for us. All of our other spots were tied with deer hunters so we had to hunt the same spot, 2 days in a row. Not very good odds for us. We moved across the pond to the timber and got set up. The birds never really came for us that morning. We got a few Greenheads and Sprigs to commit as well as a few Mergs. They died. We waited out the ducks but called it quits just a few birds shy of our limit. It was good times standing in the timber, drinking coffee, and BSin' with Mr. Ramsey.
Not a bad way to spend the Turkey Day holiday...
On a side note, we did go fishing the other day. DonnyB and I loaded up the skiff to go do some streamer fishing on the lower Illinois tailwater. It was a crap shoot. They didn't generate any water from Tenkiller Dam so we just wade fished. The lake had turned over so the river was nasty. We threw eggs, caught dumb rainbows, and took it to the house.
Streamer season is just around the corner...
