Carson with his first of many mallard drakes
Getting skunked on a hunt is never fun and when 3 guys go on a duck hunt and only get one duck it is pretty easy to brand that as a “Lousy Hunt” but in this case nothing could be further from the truth.
Having a young person along and seeing him get his first Mallard Drake made the whole thing worth it for me. We were sitting on a beaver swamp in Harnett County long before shooting light so we could hopefully not scare to many of the birds off. I’ve hunted with Carson and his Dad a number of times this morning Carson and I were in the easier to reach spot while his Dad (who was wearing waders) worked his way around to the other side of the swamp.
There was some open water in front of us and between the moon and the stars once our eyes adjusted we could see the beavers and the wood ducks swimming back and forth only a few feet from us. This was looking to be a great day’s hunt but like wood ducks will do they flew off before legal shooting light leaving us holding the bag so to speak.
Once daylight hit we had some wood ducks fly over us but our poor shooting didn’t help us bag any of them. Shortly after that the mallards started flying many out of our reach but finally some flew our way. Carson threw his gun to the shoulder and dropped one of them in the woods right behind us. He was excited especially when he discovered it was a Drake.
I swear there is no such thing as a “ lousy hunt” when you have young people along they bring you back to your early days of hunting and how exciting every little aspect was an adventure. Take a young person hunting it will a whole new perspective to your hunts and it will do away with the doldrums of a slow hunt.
As we sat in a small dinner eating breakfast and hearing Carson relive the morning hunt with his Dad I thought to myself what a lousy hunt this wasn’t .
Take a Kid Hunting!!!
