Broke my "Pintail curse"

[driveby]

After years of trying, I finally got my first Sprig Friday afternoon. I had not had any luck in the past mainly because the areas I hunted just didn't have any sprigs. Until last weekend I had never even shot at one. I knocked feathers out of that one twice only to watch him fly off into the horizon. Well, that all changed Friday afternoon. I had just walked out the levee to join my friend Phillip when ducks started working and I had to squat down in the open. I looked over my shoulder to see 2 mallards locked on the decoys and turned quickly and downed one of them. After the shot I looked up to see a group of pintails that I had not seen when I shot. They had flaired up and were directly over me so I picked out a sprig and fired 2 quick shots. I thought I had missed and was looking down to reload my gun when the sprig hit the water not 15 yards in front of me. Apparently only a couple pellets hit him and he continued to gain altitude before dying and falling. One of the guys hunting with us was walking up when all of this happened and asked who killed the duck that had already got away. It turns out he is plumed out nicely and has 2 nice long sprigs. He's definately going to the taxidermist.

[alduckhu]

Way to go bud

[MrGoodtime]

Congrats on your first sprig

[mudsucker]

Good going, driveby! I had to go to Aranasas Pass, TX on a salt flats hunt to get mine 3 seasons ago! Lots of fun!

[Blake Williamson]

Good shooting man!!

I'm still working on mine!!

[landscaper]

That's like the Holy Grail for me as well! Congratulations! I have killed a two or three over the past couple of years, but they've all been immature with short sprigs. I'm holding out for a really good one for the wall.

[MudHog]

congrats.

I shot my one and only pintail at Wax Lake WMA back in 2000. The pins aren't nearly as long, but its been on my wall ever since.

[donia]

at your non-bddc lease? if not, i see membership cost rising at the bddc!

congrats!

[goosebruce]

its easy to pull feathers on a pin as a quest duck... you aint looking at its head, your looking at that sprig... so you're shooting behind them thus pulling feathers and watching your 'trophy' fly away. try to shoot them where the white and choclate meet, and you'll wad them up like teal... doesnt take much to knock them down when your shooting them 'right', its a mind game with that long neck and that long sprig. Kinda like geese, if you make yourself shoot their beaks, they are a helluva lot easier to kill.

btw, congrats on the sprig! travis

[driveby]

at your non-bddc lease? if not, i see membership cost rising at the bddc!

congrats!

Yeah man, that thing fell right into the shoveler and scaup dekes.
Travis, you are so right on the shooting, especially the geese. It's the hardest thing in the world to me to focus on a goose's head instead of it's body. Those big canadas are the worst. I've killed a couple resident bread eaters that went 18 pounds according to a postal scale and several smaller and birds like that look like they're flying in slow motion when they are actually hauling butt. If you focus on that big body, you're not bringing them down.

[goosebruce]

So much shooting is in the mind its incredible. I wish I shot as good as i can think what i just did wrong! bwhahahahaha. My curse was always a black duck. From the time I was a kid I would ALWAYS choke when the shot presented itself. I would hunt a place for days if I saw one, just hoping itd come back. I wouldnt call the shot on a flock of mallards with a black if i couldnt get the shot on a black. I remember 4 different times, SEEING a black, knowing it was a black, and choking on the shot. had one land 35 yards behind us on a juvie hunt when my oldest boys where 11 and 12, and my brother laughed and said nobody would think a thing about it if you did. i didnt. finally a couple years ago, we had one come in and my brother I rolled it out... when it fell i hollared... he looked at me and said dude... I told him I aint claimed a duck since I was 13 years old, suck it! bwhahahahahaha. He agreed, i had saved up the claiming so he congradulated me on 'MY' black duck. had one come in with 6 mallards last year, swung behind us and came over the pit from behind... when I called the shot all of us where looking dead in the sun, 5 guns emptyed, no daffy fell. One of the biggest screw ups I ever did, but I just laughed, cause i had MY black duck behind me.

I went to great lenghts to kill a goose my entire teenage and young adult years. When I finally broke the curse on a big honk in the ice, it was on. After years of never being able to do it, it was common place and, well, easy. The geese hadn't changed, but it sure was different once I had popped my cherry so to speak. Im seeing tj my 13 year old going through that now... he'll want a particualr bird so bad, and once he gets it, the second one comes so easy. Killed his first teal the other day, the next hunt hes set up by himself, and killed a double on them... he's shot at dozens of them, and never killed one till the other day, and then the next hunt he kills a double.. thats the mind. travis

[tdaggett]

Driveby,
Congratulations on your Sprig. I've been chasing one for years, and finally got one this past Saturday. So proud of it I put it in the layout blind with me. When we got up to pack out, I checked as I got out of the blind, and it was still there. Picked up decoys while the kids went for the 4 wheelers. As I was coming out of the water with the dekes, my sons buddy looks at me and says "Where's your Unicorn?" Surely they are just screwing with the old man, and we continued to pack out. Got back to the truck and I tell 'em "OK, who's got my pintail?" BLANK STARES! They really didn't hide it. IT WAS GONE! Now, after much deliberation, argumentation, consternation, and possibly constipation, we have gone over and over the whole scenario, and decided that my crackhead, ninja theif of a retrieving dog must have snagged it while we packed, and dropped it when we called for him to load up.
The pintail is the reason I got the dog in the first place. After I lost one I chased 200 yards across an over flooded rice field before it dropped over the flash boards into a rain swolen raging rapids drainage ditch. Surely a good dog would have gotten it before it floated away. Now two years later, I finally drop another BIG bull sprig with the only great shot I've made all season, and the dog I got to save me stole the damn thing!
He stole my Unicorn, my quest continues. Congratulations on fulfilling yours.
Anxiously awaiting next weekend,
Travis (Albanian at Large)

[eSJay]

Congrats on your trophy Jerry! Funny how those things are a goal for many waterfowlers. I can stilll remember my first one 15 years ago, but can't remember my very first greedhead. You might remember seeing the mount in my camp. I prolly used a roll of film on that dude!

[aweyerman]

That one probably didn't have anything to do with shooting. Figured you probably uglied him to death.

[driveby]

That one probably didn't have anything to do with shooting. Figured you probably uglied him to death.

Nope, had to shoot him. If I uglied him he'd be too tore up to mount.