Drove 4 hours out to Central Kansas for the early season opener. Arrived to an abosulte torrential downpour, that resulted in some pretty decent localized flooding. I bet the people in these cars were surprised to come out to a foot of standing water after their delicious Mexican food dinner.
We hunted a public marsh on the opener. They allow you to launch your boat at midnight, but with the rain, we decided to hold off a bit. By two, we had launched the boat, and got to a spot where we had found teal the night before, in between rainstorms.
As it started getting light, and more people made it into the marsh, the ducks started swarming everywhere. I'm not sure I've ever seen so many teal. At shooting time, the place sounded like an absolute war zone. The shooting was a constant barrage, literally thousands of shots. We made very short work of the hunt, killing 17 bluewings and one pintail in about 20 minutes.
We headed out, got breakfast, and then drove an hour away to scout some private ground that we have access to. This ground is unlike anything I've ever hunted. Gigantic ag fields that have been harvested and replanted in rye grass that's about 4 inches tall, no cover anywhere.. The low spots generally hold small pools of water, anywhere from a puddle to 10 acre pools. We scouted several pools before finally finding a few hundred pintails mallards and teal on a pool.
We backed out, and planned on hunting it in the morning, instead of heading back to the public ground.
Sunday morning, we got our blinds brushed in with just a few moments to spare before shooting light. Huge flocks of ducks started showing up, and within 15 minutes or so, we had shot 17. We had to wait nearly 30 whole minutes for our final bird to show up, ending our hunt before 8am. Sunday was a true mixed bag, with greenwings, bluewings, mallards, pintails, widgeon and our last bird, a gadwall.
This was our second trip out to hunt the KS early opener, and if for sure won't be my last!
We hunted a public marsh on the opener. They allow you to launch your boat at midnight, but with the rain, we decided to hold off a bit. By two, we had launched the boat, and got to a spot where we had found teal the night before, in between rainstorms.
As it started getting light, and more people made it into the marsh, the ducks started swarming everywhere. I'm not sure I've ever seen so many teal. At shooting time, the place sounded like an absolute war zone. The shooting was a constant barrage, literally thousands of shots. We made very short work of the hunt, killing 17 bluewings and one pintail in about 20 minutes.
We headed out, got breakfast, and then drove an hour away to scout some private ground that we have access to. This ground is unlike anything I've ever hunted. Gigantic ag fields that have been harvested and replanted in rye grass that's about 4 inches tall, no cover anywhere.. The low spots generally hold small pools of water, anywhere from a puddle to 10 acre pools. We scouted several pools before finally finding a few hundred pintails mallards and teal on a pool.
We backed out, and planned on hunting it in the morning, instead of heading back to the public ground.
Sunday morning, we got our blinds brushed in with just a few moments to spare before shooting light. Huge flocks of ducks started showing up, and within 15 minutes or so, we had shot 17. We had to wait nearly 30 whole minutes for our final bird to show up, ending our hunt before 8am. Sunday was a true mixed bag, with greenwings, bluewings, mallards, pintails, widgeon and our last bird, a gadwall.
This was our second trip out to hunt the KS early opener, and if for sure won't be my last!
