A Nice Break

Living here in North Carolina, we have long, hot Summers.  Most years, Summer lasts well into October or even November.  That is tough.  Growing up in the Midwest, we were having cool weather in early September and Fall was in full swing by October.  So, waiting on Fall to arrive in coastal Carolina can be an ordeal.

Anyhow, a few years back I just happened to have a day off that coincided with the opening day of our little three day early season.  I thought, what the heck, even though the weather was still in the low 90's, I'd run up the Pamlico Point and give it a try.  On the drive up there, the night before, I noticed the wind was freshening and the temperature seemed to fall a little more than the previous evenings.  By the time I got to the trailer in Lowland, it was real nice out.  Cooling off nicely and a stiff breeze.  Humidity seemed to be way down,  even the mosquitoes had vanished for the evening.  At least it made it feel sort of like duck hunting weather.  I had no idea what the forecast was, but you know "hope springs eternal" with duck hunters, so I was quite content when I went to bed.

Morning came early and I immediately stepped outside to see what the weather was like.  It was still real windy.  Hadn't cooled off much more, but the air was fresh and I was pretty excited by the weather change.  Even if there were no ducks, at least it looked like a good morning to be out.

I went to Spring Creek and picked out a spot in the marsh to take advantage of the strong NNE wind.  I don't think there were any other hunters in the marsh that morning.  Probably the hot weather we'd been having had discouraged anyone else from hunting.  So I settled in to wait on daylight and see if any birds were down.  A good half hour before shooting time the Teal started pouring into my decoys.  Blue Wing and Green Wing both.  I was really excited about my prospects for the morning.

I love to eat Green Wing Teal.  Don't care that much about Blue Wings.  So just before shooting time, when it was still too dark to tell them apart, I let the dog exercise a little and flushed the birds from my decoys.  Thought I'd wait until the light was a little better, so I could try to bag a few GW's.  About actual sunrise the marsh really came alive with Teal.  Some shooting in the distance stirred up a lot of ducks.  In 15 minutes I had my limit of Teal; all Green Wings.

Picked up my decoys and headed back to the trailer.  I was really happy with the morning's shoot and felt lucky to have caught such a nice break on the weather.  When I got back I saw a friend just pulling into his driveway.  I hollered at him, told him to come over and help me pick some ducks.  He drove over and dropped the tailgate on his truck to show me three Canada Geese he had bagged that morning.  Said he had been hunting the entire early goose season with no luck.  But, the nice, cool, windy morning had paid off for him too.

Of all the bad luck that you can have while hunting, that day the luck had been all in my favor.