One Year to the Next

Last year at this time it was about 60 degrees and blowing 50 mph. I was actually fishing on the Madison with a couple buddies. The birds were non-existent and didn't come back until about the 28th of December when the weather took a nose-dive. This year, we got the warm spell but not that warm and was short-lived. We've also gotten a couple days of crappy weather with about 3 inches of snow yesterday so I did a little recon to see if the ducks would come with it.

I'm really trying to figure this out because I guess that's my nature. I want to be that guy that can say, "Well, it should be good today," and actually have it be good. Yesterday I didn't think it was going to be great but I did figure on getting some action. The weather was so bad, however, the only ducks I shot were ducks that were hunkered down that we jumped.

With the weather the way it is the day after the storm--cold but not too cold and sun--I guess I'm expecting a few new ducks are already in the area but steadily bringing more and more as the week moves on. We shall see because I'm going out for some more recon again. I'm feeling the afternoon hunt more as ducks get a little antsy and start moving around. I know that's not very conventional but that's my plan.

I looked back at posts from last year and saw that the morning hunts were never all that epic but got more steady action throughout the day. The ducks that kept filtering in are freshies and are much easier to decoy. The late ducks are the locals that know the drill and usually wait until they can't be touched. We shall see and I'm going to keep doing my research because well, it's fun.

Keep 'em where they live...