With this post you get two for the price of one. Just remember, there is always a solution to a problem.
Food for thought or to drink with your morning coffee.
Waterfowl Etiquette
Mr. Jimmy Riddell had a story about what the new age of water fowlers call “Top water Slob Hunters. One was about a group of roost shooters and the other was a move on in type of Top water. If you ever listened to one of Mr. Jimmy’s duck hunting stories, you learned valuable insight into the sport of duck hunting.
“The Roost Shooter”
I guess Mr. Jimmy hated a roost shooter worse than any type of hunter. He harped on the fact that a roost shooter was just that, a shooter. He did not take the time to learn how to call to feeding or resting ducks. His method of hunting was simply to go into a place where the ducks came in just before dark and shoot till you could not see anymore. He always said if you shoot um on the roost, they don’t come back. If you shoot in the AM or late A.M. you still give them time to loaf in the afternoon before they go back out to feed. Mr. Jimmy told a story about a group of roost shooters that started coming into the resting area that he was hunting. About the time they were heading out late one morning there were a group of hunters in two boats headed into the marsh. The ducks had quite flying and were already down to rest. Jimmy said he could see them stringing up toilet paper in the button willows to find their way out after dark. He said where the ducks usually rested was way out in the middle of the marsh. After they had gone by and were out of sight. He said he picked up the toilet paper for a good 200 yards leading in and re-strung it directly due South into the thickest part of marsh. He then proceeded back to Jackson. The next day, they had their usual hunt and stopped by the farmers house on the edge of the marsh, where they had access, to see what happened to the roost shooters. The local farmer told Mr. Jimmy that he could hear whooping, hollering, and even 3 gun blasts every once in a while ALL NIGHT LONG. He said just before daylight he heard their truck crank up and leave. Mr. Jimmy said it must have been some night for those fellows, as it got down close to freezing. “Serves um right” he said.
“The Move on In Hunter”
Mr. Jimmy hunted a marsh that was bought by the Federal Government. It is now called Hillside, but back in Mr. Jimmy’s day he called it Blissdale for the name of the farm where he had access. The Farm bordered the East side or the hill side of the marsh. You came through Mr. Black’s gate by his house and drove down to the edge of the water and marsh. Mr. Jimmy had a trail cut out to the clear water run that ran down the middle of the marsh. Where you hit the run he had a blind called the middle blind on a pretty large hole. The run narrowed to the north and then opened about 80-100 yards north of the middle blind into the Mr. Jimmy’s flight duck hole. 60 yards by 35 yards it was a perfect killing size. Mr. Jimmy had been killing ducks out of that flight duck hole for 15 or 20 years when a hunter came into the marsh below the Blissdale farm. Once in the marsh he began to hear all of Jimmy’s hunts. It was then that the hunter made a very unethical move and built a blind just north of Jimmy’s flight duck hole. It was on a small hole NE of Jimmy’s blind. Mr. Jimmy waited until the intruder had just about finished his blind and upon his exit one morning, Jimmy motored over to his blind. He shimmed up a topped out willow that was just behind the blind. He put a large pocket sized mirror facing up at a 45degree and facing SE. Mr. Jimmy said about the time the flight ducks started working the sun would be up and hit the mirror perfectly. On any swing they made, the ducks would flare. Mr. Jimmy said it was very effective on sunny days, and the guy only killed a couple of ducks on the cloudy days. After having such poor luck at the spot, he abandoned his blind. And that’s how you take care of the move on in hunter.
