Just a short morning on the farm pond. Early enough in the season, and warm temps all of the way north did little to provide high expectations for today. While decent numbers for this time of year, and a tiny cold front the past couple days made me feel confident we’d get a little action, I wasn’t quite ready for what we saw.
In fact, I was pretty ill-prepared all around. Knowing there was to be little to no wind, I completely forgot the jerk rig. This was, without question, the difference between an 8-duck day and a four-man limit.
Farm pond hunting can be very different than marsh hunting; you might see a few groups all morning, or even 6-8 groups, but you’ll have a pretty decent shot at getting them in. On a big wetlands or marsh, you might see thousands of ducks, but never get a shot. I prefer the quiet of my ponds, and have for many years now. And every once in awhile, when the timing is right, you might get that “marsh-like” show on your little cattle pond. This was just such a day.
Had to be a migration day. Lots of very high ducks. And lots of ducks looking for a loafing pond to take a load off. 3-4 times we had 5-6 groups working at once. Sky was crazy, like day-break on a big marsh. And it was like that for 2-and-a-half hours. On multiple occasions we had a hundred or more birds in the air, and even on the pond… just… not in our decoys.
The pond was glass. No wind. Meaning no birds. At one time we had 4-5 groups sitting on the pond in various places. Only a couple groups of silly bills and ringnecks gave us a chance to shake the pond up. A couple groups of teal worked a bit too close as well, and then the VERY moment we got a breeze on the blocks, a mallard dumped in without a bit of hesitation. Along with the wind, a group of 20 green wings finished our morning up by also taking advantage of the developing breeze.
The moment we had wind on the decoys, we had birds. Unfortunately, a couple hours too late. And now, heading out to find and repair my jerk rig for tomorrow…
