By Dusty Mahn and Tom Scheirer
Wednesday, October 25 at 4:00 a.m. Tom and I packed up our hunting gear and left for Patterson Slough. The slough is about five minutes outside Waconia, MN. The day was rainy and really cloudy which is usually good for duck hunting. When we got there we launched Tom’s canoe and paddled down the cattail trail and set up in the “second hole”. We were hoping this would be a great day for killing ducks.
We set up three dozen mallard decoys, six bluebills, four canvasbacks, six geese, and five teal. We shoved into the cattails and covered the canoe up with cattails. I have a Remington 870 pump 12 gauge three inch magnum shotgun. Tom has a Remington 1187 semi automatic 12 gauge three inch magnum. We had brought along two boxes each of Remington High Velocity 12 gauge BB Shotgun shells. Now all we needed were some ducks.
Just as we finished covering the boat with cattails we looked up and there was a drake greenwinged teal sitting in the middle of our decoys. It flew up and Tom and I both shot at it. Tommy got it and we left it lay because now a widgeon was flying into the decoys. I shot it and we saw some buffleheads flying by the decoys. I called them in with my Haydells Redleg mallard call and they landed in the decoys. I shot one of them on the water and the other one escaped.
Next, the hen mallard flew into the decoys and I shot it. Now it was time to go pick up the ducks. We canoed through the decoys and picked up the four ducks we had shot so far. At this point it was only 15 minutes into our shooting time, still 10 minutes to sunrise.
We pulled back into our spot and covered up just as a flock of six or seven ducks came in. They were setting in and two drake widgeon were in front. Just as they were going to land, Tommy and I each shot one. Moments later, another greenwinged teal drake came in. We hit it, but it flew and died too far away for us to retrieve. We felt bad about that.
After that, we saw a flock of eight mallards and as I was calling at them I noticed three shovelbills coming right at us. When they were in range Tom and I each picked one and shot it. Then, we each shot once more at the last bird, missing. Tom gave up, but I loaded one more shell and shot it way out there.
It was time to go pick up ducks again and by this point we had nine ducks in the boat. We were getting very excited because it was only about 8:00 a.m. and it looked like we might even get our limit. We covered the boat again and saw some more flocks of mallards but they didn’t come in. A single widgeon dropped down and Tom shot it and it fell so close to the boat we almost caught it! Next, a bluewinged teal flew in and landed right in our decoys and I shot it.
About 10 minutes later a single drake mallard came in and we both shot it. By this time we had our limit, so we sat and watched all kinds of ducks fly into our decoys. We watched for about an hour and then went to pick up decoys and the rest of our ducks.
While we were picking up decoys a flock of about 20 or 25 geese flew by. I called them into range and we shot and missed them. We were really mad that we missed the geese so we decided to go home.
Back at my house we breasted all the ducks except the two mallards. We plucked the mallards and dipped them in paraffin wax to get the pinfeathers off.
Later that night we decided to cook the two mallards that we had shot. We stuffed them with apples and onions, rubbed them with sage, salt and pepper and wrapped them in bacon. We put a little water in the bottom of a pan and roasted them for an hour and a half at 375 degrees. Next, we took a dozen small red potatoes and boiled them until they were done. We added 12 cloves of garlic, a lot of butter and 1/2 of a package of Alouette Garlic and Herb cheese spread. We feasted on duck and garlic mashed potatoes and were really happy with the way the day had gone.