Shawn Swearingen for SPLIT REED
Cover Photo Courtesy Phil Kahnke
The one can be as difficult to locate as the other. In an overpressured public land area not far from two major urban areas, even more so. The glimmer of headlamps from the goobers walking in on your set up 10 minutes before legal shooting light only wants you to push farther into the woods, into the unknown, and away from the madness.
This is what led me to stumble through thick underbrush and upon a beautiful flooded timber hole where echoes from geese and squeals of wood ducks called to me like Greek sirens.
The usually small river rises and falls with the spring rains through the management area, causing it to go over the banks and into the hardwood bottoms. So finding puddles holding water in the low-lying areas were not unusual. That morning, pushing through the undergrowth into parts unknown of public land, finding these usually small puddles large enough to hold wood ducks and nesting geese was a welcome surprise. The turkeys that were the pursuit that muggy morning had already moved on from the roost trees, out to be amongst the ticks, budding oaks, and hickories. This flooded timber area, if hunted in the right conditions, would be well worth the days’ sweat in duck season.
With a GPS pin dropped, fast forward a few long summer months. We were finally walking back to the timber hole on a cool November morning after months of hypotheticals and anticipation. The setting full moon guided our walk and while not ideal duck hunting conditions it made for a beautiful sight as we rounded the corner and found the hole flooded. The day and season brought us mallards and black ducks cruising overhead and wood ducks blasting through the trees twisting and turning in the predawn assault.
An unexpected scouting mission months ago in a spring turkey season brought us hope and a bounty in ducks and memories. Knowing what to look for, and when, can bring these opportunities no matter what you are chasing. Reasonable expectations and knowledge of how the terrain reacts to given conditions will guide you on how to hunt the particular area. It is a balancing act of hunting it at the right time while not overpressuring the birds.
When we didn’t know it would be the final hunt of the season in that special flooded timber hole, thanks to mother nature finally showing rains and too high of a river to access it, the afternoon didn’t produce any ducks on the ground. As the evening ‘magic hour’ began, the startling flaps of an 18-pound bird taking off to the roost tree a stone’s throw away. While waiting for ducks to cruise through the timber this snapped the mind forward to the green, muggy spring mornings. Even if waterfowl season was about to close, chasing that Tom whose beard was clearly silhouetted against the dying sky, will come soon enough.
