The Missing Pintail

One time Whit and I were hunting out of #74. We had a decent enough Bluebill and Scoter shoot, a pretty good day actually. We both shot very well and killed everything that decoyed. We were fairly close to our limit when out of nowhere a beautiful drake Pintail appeared. It came right into the decoys, flared nicely at about 35 yards and gave us a perfect passing shot. We both missed. We stared at each other is disbelief. Neither of us had an excuse, but probably had our heads off the stock waiting to see the bird fall. I never killed a Pintail out of that blind and it certainly would have been a nice addition to our duck strap. But it just wasn't meant to be. Oh well...

When we got finished hunting and picked up the decoys it was still fairly early, about noon I think. We decided we would go to the Spring Creek Impoundment for an afternoon puddleduck hunt. The forecast was for increasing clouds and wind and even a chance of snow, so we thought a small marsh like Spring Creek might pay off that afternoon.

We got to the marsh about 1400 and the weather was really closing in. We decided to hike a pretty good way down the dike to get to a spot where we would have a big woods behind us to break the wind. We set out the decoys in nice calm water. About 1530 the ducks started coming into the marsh. We had a great shoot. Took turns shooting mostly singles and teamed up on the pairs. Gadwall, Wigeon, GW Teal and I think a Wood Duck. Only took us about an hour to shoot a limit.

It had been a truly fine day. Limit of Bluebills and Scoter in the morning and a limit of Puddleducks in the afternoon. Couldn't ask for a better day. The snow on the marsh had made a really picturesque setting. You don't have many days like that.

When we were walking back the dike, Patty and Hoss were just running around enjoying the freedom and all the fresh territory to explore, when suddenly Patty stopped short and started burrowing down into the thick grass along the dike. Whit called and whistled for her, told me he had seen her digging like that before, trying to catch a muskrat. We both had a little chuckle over that and walked on. Whit turned to whistle for her again and here she came running up the dike to catch us with a big Bull Sprig in her mouth. When Whit took the bird from her, it was dead, but still warm and fresh. I told him that I didn't think either one of us had even shot at a Pintail, and that someone else must have hunted there in the morning and crippled the bird. Whit shook his head and said that both of us had thought we missed the duck, but that was our Pintail that got away from us that morning out in #74. That, of course, was totally impossible, but it worked for us.