The morning of the Michigan Mid-zone Waterfowl Opener dawned with just about perfect duck hunting weather.  It was cold and overcast with wind.  Jim and Thunder headed out well before dawn to set up the decoys in a nice little pond on state land.  Of course when hunting state land, it sometimes happens that there are others who want to hunt the same pond.  A few minutes before hunting hours started, a party of three showed up to hunt the pond where Jim and Thunder were already set up.  Two of the hunters went around the other side, (which is actually private land…grrr!).  One said that he couldn’t walk far so he set up on the same side of the pond where Jim was set up with Thunder.  Right at opening hours there were a couple of ducks flying on the other side of the pond and the party over there took a couple of shots, but didn’t hit anything.  After that….nothing.  There were geese in the area, but they were sitting tight just past the pond on the private land and not flying.  After about 45 minutes, the party of 3 left.  Thunder and Jim waited a bit longer before packing it up.  Maybe there would be better luck in the evening…

Around noon the weather cleared and it turned sunny.  Thunder went along for the afternoon session.  Maybe he would get one retrieve…

Beautiful Pond
Sunny Weather
Beautiful Fall Color
Where Are The Ducks?
I Smell Them, But I Don't See Them
I'll Try Harder To Blend In So I Don't Scare Them Off
Nothing

And there was nothing.  Another day Jim and Thunder tried their luck down by the river.  A few Wood Ducks flew over but Jim could not get them to come into the decoys.  Waterfowl hunting was a pretty much a bust for the week.  The weather turned warmer as the week wore on and as the weather warmed up, there was no need for the dogs to wear their vests.  There were no new ducks coming in and the local ducks were pretty much wise to the hunters after the first day.

One good thing, Thunder finally has the whole duck hunting thing down and is content to sit quietly and watch and wait.  Finally, at the age of five.  🙂  He used to be impatient about sitting still for long periods, but he seems to finally understand what is expected of him.  Storm still gets antsy when she has to sit for a long time.  She much prefers to upland hunt because it is constant motion.  The first morning her nose was out of joint when Thunder got to go and she had to stay home, but after that, she was content to just snooze the morning away.  However, if she even thought Thunder was going grouse hunting and she was to stay home, well she was quite put out.

Tomorrow, some pictures of them grouse hunting where they had a bit of success…just a bit.

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16 thoughts on “Mid-zone Waterfowl Opener 2011”

  1. Well that sucks it didn’t go as planned! The pictures turned out awesome though! We finally got a little bit of cool weather in Texas this weekend that took us out of the triple digits!

  2. Well it sucks that they didn’t get anything but still sounds like some great down time. I can’t imagine either one of my dogs staying still for that long!

    I love the pictures, you have a great eye.

    1. I wish I could take full credit for the pictures, but they were taken by my husband. Generally he takes the hunting pictures with our old pocket digital camera. But I will pass along your compliment (and hopefully it will encourage him to take more as I am always begging him for pictures). 🙂

  3. That stinks! I hear it’s suppose to get cooler later in the week, so maybe that will help!
    Well at least you got some beautiful fall pictures!

    1. The Fall colors were beautiful this year. I guess warm days and cold nights did the trick. I will post some of those pictures eventually.

  5. And so it goes… Another opener in the books, and I find myself wanting the days past during early goose season. We did manage to scratch down two geese and those two did not really look like they were planning on landing in the dekes. We did see a LOT of geese, but the trouble with a bunch of chopped and picked fields, you just never know which fields they are going to pick. The field we shot opening morning had well over 150 birds in it the morning before… Opening day… most of them decided to dine in a field about a half mile away. We did have some excitement as we called in a flock of about 50 geese and we watched them maple leaf down and hold at about 50 yards up. However they did not look like they wanted to land and we tried them at around 45 yards above our layout blinds. It was after we shot that we realized that we were loaded with duck loads (#4 shot) because of the good chance of ducks early in the morning. Just another day for Beau… He did stare at us for a few minutes after we shot and nothing dropped… If looks could kill…
    Tried the Grand this morning, but with the warm weather, the birds were happy sitting where they were… Had two flocks of geese that we turned and sounded interested, but they were looking to eat, not rest. Other than that, the ducks were pretty content to stay where they were. We saw 8 or 10 woodies and half a dozen mallards or so, but it was not a great day to decoy ducks.
    Great pictures!! I took one of a beaver pond that Beau, Tom and I hunted last week in the Manistee forest and put it in face book. If you have time, check it out! I dropped my cell in the water, wiped it off and took the shot… Man am I glad that I got a water resistant phone!

    1. Glad to hear you had a good Early goose season. I will definitely check out the pictures. You need to send me some so I can post them here. 🙂 I’d love to share some pics of your handsome big boy!

      1. Beau and I are heading to Shiawasse in the morning… I will try to take the camera with me! I am not sure if you can copy my pics of Beau on Face book so I will just send you some… Go get ’em this weekend! Tom and I limited out today in less than 2 hours!!

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