Why?
So, let me begin with the premise: We went duck hunting for the first time last year. We went on the first day of the season. We researched what happens like crazy, before we went…we researched what happens in the air… Basically, the process was a comedy of errors. We had purchased a couple packs of duck decoys, a sled to haul our stuff into the hunting site, chairs to sit on since we were going to be sitting there for quite some time before shooting light, and warm gear to keep from freezing in the chilly morning temps. But, have you ever tried to haul 80 pounds of gear through shin high muck, in the dark, half awake for a mile from the parking lot to legal public hunting land shooting lanes? And remember my comment about it being opening day?
The silence with just the occasional coo of owls, the distant howl of a dog from an adjoining farm, even the rustling of the tree branches from the wind the was picking
up a bit while we waited for first light were peaceful and soothing.
AJ checked her phone for the time. 10 minutes to shooting light. And like an alarm clock (those 1960s, wake the dead, rip your flesh from the bones, grinding while screaming broken bell alarm clocks) the first beer can cracked open not 50 yards behind us in the next cove over. Instantly, every animal within a mile went silent. By first light we had heard at least 14 cans crack open and the voices were getting louder with each crack. By shooting light we didn’t need our timer to go off. The group was yelling for each other to shoot and the shotguns were popping one after the other. We were dodging pellets left and right. And not a single duck was in the sky…
By the end of our trip we’d seen a grand total of 6 ducks, all too far away to shoot, none going anywhere near the next cove over, but the party over there was still roaring. We learned some valuable lessons that day, lessons we are working to remedy and lessons we are passing on to you.
The Project of the Day: John Boat Duck Blind
Today’s lesson is a bit of an all-around project that we found could provide multiple solutions for us. We are still experimenting and fine tuning the project so feel free to modify and perfect this as you see fit. After all, hunting (no matter what you are hunting for) is a very personal experience that must be tailored to suit you personally.
We bought a John Boat last summer with the intention of fishing from it only to realize there were so many more possibilities. When we realized duck season was fast approaching and there were still a few speed bumps from last year that we had not resolved, we decided to put the John Boat to more use. AJ found some advertisements for duck blinds that could be purchased and placed on a John Boat, but they were in the $1,000 + range…A price neither of us were all that interested in spending. So AJ set out on a mission: Find a way to use the John Boat as a safe and efficient way to travel to our hunting spots and use it as a duck blind without spending a fortune in the process. Many, many, hours