Georgia Hands

On Sunday, December 20, 2009, we were graced by the arrival of Ray Tew and his sons, who hail from the Atlanta, GA area. I'll be the first to admit that I'd been sweating bullets because, as of Saturday, every duck in Northeast Arkansas was sitting smack dab in the middle of a field directly North of Rick's reservoir, and they didn't look as if they had any intentions of altering their pattern.

Nonetheless, God loves me, and he apparently don't hate them GA boys either. The winds gave us fits, and I cursed the weatherman on more than one occasion, but the end result was a fairly nice gut-pile.

On Sunday, the headcount was 21, including 3 Pintail, 1 Mallard, and 17 Shovelers.




On Sunday evening, as I was scouting Charles' Field in search of Monday's prey, I heard something curious. In the distance I could hear the sound of mallards feeding to the East. Following said curiosity, I drove around the ditch to discover a large raft of birds on the Butterworth field, which would be a first in the history of our farm. Appropriately, we set up on them on Monday, and the results were good, I must say. 23 Birds, Including 2 Mallards, 1 Wigeon, and 20 Shovelers.

In the afternoon, we moved the blind to Charles' East and hunted again, where we killed another 13 birds, including 2 Mallards and 11 Shovelers.



Total for Regular Season: 368
Combined Teal & Regular for 2009: 428
Birds Per Hunt: 18.4
Birds Per Day of Season: 17.52
219 Shovelers (Arrrrrrrrgh!)
84 Mallards
24 Specks
16 Green Wing
14 Pintails
5 Gadwall
2 Blue Wing
2 Wigeon
1 Red Head
1 Snow