I recall a red letter duck day, from 2-3 years back. I've been chasing green heads in eastern AR for 25+ years. When my oldest grandson got big enough to handle a duck gun I took him with me and he killed his first mallards. A couple years later his younger brother showed interest in going with us, so we made it a threesome.
i was shooting my 32" HE Fox with 1 1/4 oz. handloads of #4 bismuth. There were five of us in the big floating blind that morning and it was a good day. Both grandsons killed ducks, and Grandad was on a pretty good roll. I had killed a mallard and a widgeon, with two shots. Then I killed a gadwall with one shot. A drake and a hen mallard circled and made the commitment. Just as I pulled on the drake the hen cut behind him and I dumped them both with one shot. I was thinking that I was five for four shells. Thinking stuff like that can get to you. I said to myself "Myself, if you kill the next one with one shell you will have a 6 duck limit with 5 shells". Next duck I had a shot at was a big mallard drake, all by his lonesome. He circled the dekes four or five times, talking it up. The wind was in our faces, and he came from behind. I hit him hard....... I thought. As he was falling I could tell he had lots of life left in him and would be a swimmer, so I hit him again before he hit the water, with the left barrel.
Ended the morning six for six, and both grandsons killed ducks. That was indeed a red letter day, but I remember another one in that same blind, with that same gun. My friend and his Dad were with me. They own the land. And, another friend from AR was with us. Slow morning. We had killed 6 or 8 when a lone drake mallard starting circling the hole. He was lonesome, but wary. He came from behind and I thought, from the way he was losing altitude, that he was going to set down in the dekes. He saw something at the last minute that he didn't like and starting climbing, going straight away. I put that big Fox's bead on him and sent a load of bismuth chasing him. It hit him hard and he shuddered, but kept going, climbing slightly. When my load hit him he was probably 45 yards out, and many of you know how hard it is to anchor a duck with a straightaway shot, if you don't break a wing. He flew out to about 170 yards then put both wings out rigid and crashed to the water, behind some tall trees. My older friend said that I had the only gun in the blind that would have made that shot, with it's tight chokes and the bismuth.
My younger friend commanded his young black Lab Max to "Mark!". He sent him through the decoys, across the big hole. Into the trees he swam ..........out of sight completely. We waited and waited. I was getting worried about Max because he had been gone so long and there was nowhere the water was shallow enough for him to touch bottom. I mentioned that we might should get in the boat and go see about him. We waited a couple more minutes and my friend said "Look at that!" Max was coming back through the trees and we could barely make out a green head hanging in front. Finest duck retrieve I ever witnessed ........... at least 180 yards, blind retrieve with no correction from his master, out of sight of us, in deep water.
SRH
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