Low 55, high 72
South wind 0-5 mph, cloudy
Mitch (my dad), Michael H., Chad P. and myself
I had the opportunity to take Lady Madison on two morning hunts at the family farm on the Tallahatchie/Quitman county line. The field we would be hunting is a cut soybean field. Our strongest days on the field come with cold temperatures, good winds and sunny skies. On these hunts we had none of these. We have been holding a good number of birds in the area and chose to hunt the “Black Blind.” The Black Blind is one of three 20 foot long above ground wooden blinds we built in 2011 on our one mile long South levee. The Black is the middle of the three and usually finds itself directly underneath the majority of the birds in the area’s flight plan. After throwing out roughly 100 decoys in two wads, strategically placing shakers and jerk strings throughout the spread, and putting Lady Madison out we got settled for what we figured would be a long morning.
We killed a couple birds early and then the birds started pouring in, but as typically happens on cloudy days on the farm, it’s hard to finish birds. We worked countless massive groups of mallards & gadwalls this day, but could only finish the singles and pairs that would break away from the flock. There was four of us in the blind that morning. At 12:00 noon as is accustomed on our field, we called it a morning. The highlite of the morning, we had been discussing all black duck encounters or lack there of. The end of our story was cut short by a group of birds working. As they made their first (and closest) pass at +/- 60 yards, Chad said “isn’t that a black right there?” There he was, black as night in the middle of a nice flock of mallards… Wish Lady Madison would have slung a little more of her charm… The mornings take ended with 4 green wing teal, 11 mallards, 7 gadwall and one specklebellie goose.
