December 2023, South Carolina: Fall waterfowl migration (heaviest during August through October) provides good hunting when a balmy Thanksgiving early season rolls around. The late season opens again during mid-December and runs through the chill of January 31st. Wherever you launch that Jon boat on the eastern seaboard, look for crucial refuge areas like coastal wetlands, estuarine habitats, and barrier islands. Morning sunrises in the Lowcountry are breathtaking. Oyster beds and tall reed grass (especially in high tide) are good spots to hide and drop anchor, and many locals like to hunt marsh hens to extend their shooting opportunities.
October 2020, South Dakota: Migratory duck hunts over the “prairie pothole” depressions have put South Dakota on waterfowlers’ bucket lists. Our guide, Mark, busted tail to set us over a different locale and group of decoys daily according to scouting and wind patterns. And we still managed to get our late morning and afternoon rooster hunts in.
Sandwiched between these Virginian jokesters, we limited out all three mornings with eighteen waterfowl. Dennis (on the left) threatened me with sending the same socks I detested he wore into the field. Doug played football at William & Mary against Pitt in the 70s. My Dad took me to those same games! It’s a small world. And look what arrived one week after I got home.
November 2017, Louisiana: Venice is THE journey for any duck hunting enthusiast. Each morning, I was met by the beautiful blue waters of the Mississippi Delta bayous and Kevin Drury of Limitless Waterfowl. Watching chocolate lab 'River' tenaciously retrieve our gamebirds was amazing despite her otherwise slow, southern disposition. Widgeons, canvasbacks, pintails, teals, gadwalls, and bluebills rounded out my harvest. Mudding out of 8"-12" of receding tide water was an experience all by itself.
Red fishing after your daily waterfowl limits is procured makes a good day greater since you’re already on the water. Faithfull every night, God tries to get our attention that He’s the one that tells the sun when to set and the moon to appear. And we take it for granted.