Ducks, Bent Trees, Horseback Riders, Just a Day on the Big Slough...

I spent a nice afternoon yesterday in the Big Slough Wilderness Area . It's duck season and with recent rains the water is up a bit. The pot hole in this photo was attractive to wood ducks. It's wadable water to get downed birds but on my last trip on opening day this was dry land.   

I bagged one wood duck hen yesterday and missed an easy shot on a drake. I probably saw all total a dozen ducks including about six that swam past me on the big slough while I was watching the pothole. Those six hugged the far undercut bank in the fastest current. They made themselves too much trouble for an old fat man in waders to even think about shooting and trying to retrieve.  

It was a good day for stalking quietly through the winter woods and I slipped up on a big hawk eating this racoon. He flew and after a photo of the carcass I went on down the trail to leave him to his business. 

After shooting that duck I slipped up to the big, fast water with a long straight away view down the slough and saw several more ducks probably including the drake I shot at swimming on the water. I was well hidden, not moving or making noise and they flushed. I pulled back to keep and eye on the pot hole where downed birds would be retrievable and I hear voices approaching from near where I had seen the ducks swimming.    

Duck hunters don't have to wear orange as ducks see color but I keep hunter orange in my backpack for if I come on other people and I want to be seen. I donned an orange hat and these horse riders appeared. They spotted me and stopped to talk. They were looking for a lost hog dog. They gave me a found duck decoy.

I guess I was raised to hunting by a WW2 veteran who was very cautious with guns and hunter safety and in the old days horse back riding, especially on open national forest land was considered dangerous as some one might spot the large animal and mistake it for game. Hunter education courses have been mandatory in Texas since 1988 and anyone born after 1971 needs it to hunt. It's possible that people are safer in the woods than when I was a kid. 

Those riders seemed surprised I was duck hunting without a dog. I had hip waters and a 12' telescoping fiberglass crappie rod that I rake them in with. Pretty low tech in the modern world but it works. They probably told people they came on a Wildman in the woods, an old guy with long gray hair and beard who had walked way into the middle of nowhere.      

Speaking of wildmen I noticed this bent tree across the old grown over logging road trail down to the water. Trees in the woods get bent by storms, the weight of  ice on the branches or other trees falling on them. 

Then I noticed how the branches of the horizontal tree formed an interlocking natural latch against the vertical tree. 

Can you see it? Locked tight. This looks like the work of a Sasquatch who does not want me down in this part of the woods. I thought it would be pretty funny so I urinated on his gate just to let him know who is boss. 

I saw no more ducks so when shooting hours ended at abut 5:20pm I walked back to my truck arriving in the dusky dark. There was a dead pine sapling about 25' tall across the road. There was another truck down at the dead end that must have parked before it fell or was pushed down so it had not been there too long. I carry an axe, shovel and tow strap and was able to break out the top of the tree and toss the skinny trunk off the road. Did someone want me to spend the night?

Anyway we have two ducks in the freezer with plans for Cathy to cook her famous fried duck breast and gravy. That, along with any other duck hunts before closing day on Jan 30th and Bigfoot encounters will be other blog posts.