Even though I know in my heart we haven't experienced The Grand Migration of waterfowl across Minnesota in several decades, when I approached my duck camp Friday afternoon west of Alexandria I was anticipating at least a few new ducks in the neighborhood. And, once again, I was wrong.
The historic low pressure system and its attending 50 knot winds had done nothing for the duck count except deplete it. The few local mallards, cum laude graduates of Steel University all, that had been around the previous weekend evidently took advantage of the tail wind to ride out of the area.
Nevertheless I splashed down 14 homemade diver decoys, a dozen aging Herters mallard decoys and six Canada goose floaters in the twilight Friday evening hoping for the best next morning. A warming camp fire and a chicken-not-duck breast meal made the 160-mile drive seem worthwhile.
In the pre-dawn light a freshening northwest wind foretold of ducky weather. And at 7:26 a.m. a lone Hooded Merganser slid across the waves into my diver decoys. Neither my partner nor I were ready to stoop that low, so we just watched the fish duck try to make friends with plastic bluebills. Nothing else was flying.
Then at 8:00 o'clock a pair of dipper ducks swung into the wind on final for our set up. Decoying ducks! I nearly fainted. Two shots later and two easy retrieves by Doc the dog we had two plump gadwalls in hand. First time in many years I had seen the tan epauleted wings of gadwall on this slough.
More long waiting under duckless skies. Then four ringbills jetted across our spread, made a long, graceful fly around and also decoyed on their second pass. Two 12-gauge shotguns barked again and two divers hit the water, albeit one only winged. Doc brought in the easy one first. And when I sent him again for the wounded ringbill I doubted he would be successful. But, leaving a wake a waterskier could have jumped over, he made one of those 300-yard retrieves that leaves me emotional.
All this was followed by another hour of scanning the skies in vain for waterfowl. But by then the Canada geese, ever-present in the Alex area, were looking for something to chase their corn breakfasts. Four circled our spread warily answering the pleading calls of my Ken Martin call honk for honk and decided to commit. A long volley of six shots on impossibly large and easy targets brought down just one goose. When Doc got to the goose and turned for the blind he couldn't see ahead of him because of the bulky bird. So he tried to walk on water, high stepping with his front paws. Pride doesn't begin to describe my feelings for this dog. When you get to my age you'll be able to relate.
