Ducks please the crowd in marsh on opener

Near Brainerd – Arise at 3:30 a.m. on the Minnesota duck hunting opener and you'd think you be one of the first to enter the marsh.

Wrong.

Saturday, when Rolf Moen of Nisswa, Minn., and I launched my duck boat at a secluded landing on a sprawling wild rice marsh, it seemed nearly as many flashlight beams permeated the darkness as there were stars in the sky.

Ten days earlier, a friend and I had hunted soras here, also scouting for ducks. During our hunt we had seen a reasonable number of ducks, primarily blue-winged teal, but a fair number of wood ducks also. Despite the wet spring, wild rice grew profusely on the marsh this year, and the ducks seemed to be taking advantage of the abundant seeds. Nearly absent, though, were mallards, although we saw an occasional flock here and there.

Three days ago a friend and I again scouted the marsh. On that trip, the duck numbers had flip-flopped. Wood ducks were more abundant than blue-winged teal. The teal we did see were in large flocks of 20 to 40 birds, gathered as if they were ready to migrate. Mallards were far more abundant on our second trip. Typical of the big ducks, the flocks were spotty. One half-mile of shoreline held virtually no mallards, then we encountered large flocks concentrated in certain areas. During my scouting foray I had noted three likely locations in which to set up on the duck hunting opener.

Back to our Saturday morning hunt.

As Rolf and I motored in the obscurity of predawn, we first went to what I figured would be our primary hunting spot. Someone beat us to it. The hunter or hunters shined flashlights in our direction.

On to the next spot. Same scenario. My third choice? Ditto. This is what can happen when hunting the duck opener on a popular public hunting area.

Now what?

I've duck hunted this particular area since I was 14 years old. Now, more than four decades later, I was at a loss as to where to hunt.

"Maybe we should park the boat in the wild rice and rely on pass shooting," I said to Rolf. "Ducks, especially teal, will fly toward our No. 1 spot. All we have to do is get in their path."

So that's what we did.

When shooting time arrived ducks were trading back and forth, a mixture of blue-winged teal and wood ducks. Accompanying us, canine-wise, was Rolf's 10-year-old pudelpointer, Annie. She anxiously watched ducks as they passed out of gun range.

Shortly we had several ducks in the bag, Annie leaping from the boat to make the retrieves. Then, as two ducks approached from the south, Rolf raised his gun to shoot. When he pulled the trigger both birds cartwheeled in midair and landed dead on the water.

Two ducks with one shot is a relatively rare occurrence. But in this case one bird was a wood duck, the other a blue-winged teal, making the shot a really memorable experience.

The ducks continued to fly, and by 7:30 a.m. Rolf and I had our limit of 12 ducks. Our bag consisted of four wood ducks and eight blue-winged teal.

In predawn, we had watched two shooting stars streak across the inky sky, an omen, perhaps, to a good day ahead.