-By Rich Miller
Well the rut is pretty much over here in South Carolina and the deer movement has been really slow for the last week or so. The big bucks have disappeared again and the only thing I am seeing is a few does and a yearling buck or two.
This past Tuesday afternoon a friend of mine that owns River House Plantation gave me a call and invited me to hunt with them on opening morning of duck season. I couldn’t pass up a chance to hunt his place. At River House Plantation they have managed and built impoundments and it is paying huge dividends because the ducks are there.
I was going to be hunting with another good friend of mine and his fifteen-year-old son. We met up with everyone at 6 a.m. to get assigned the blind we would be hunting. Once we were in the blind we had about forty-five minutes before shooting light and that gave us time to talk about this year’s deer season and tell stories of our previous hunts. That is the thing I like best about duck hunting, the talking and cutting up with one another. After sitting in a deer stand for the last three months trying to be as quiet as possible and not move a muscle, it is a welcomed relief to sit in a blind and not worry about making too much noise. Plus, the shooting is always good too.
Once it had gotten legal shooting light, there were a few ducks that landed in the middle of the pond, but they were out of range. It wasn’t long after that, there was a big group that came in and tried to sit down about 18-yards in front of the blind. When the shooting stopped I think we had three big green heads on the water. We had barely gotten those three picked up and back in the blind when the next group started working in. It was fast and furious for about ten minutes until we each got our limit of mallards. That is when the hard part started. We had to sit there watching the birds pour in and we couldn’t shoot anymore.
When everyone was finished we met back up at the ATV’s and headed back to the truck. I think just about everyone limited out and the few that didn’t were pretty good sports to put up with the hard time that everyone gave them. Once we had gotten all the birds cleaned we divided them out equally and headed to the café to get some breakfast. You know it is a good hunt when you have a limit of mallards cleaned and in the truck before the coffee gets cold.
