Illinois Early Teal Season 2006
September 2006
Although I have not taken afield for the Illinois early teal season previously, this year I am trying to make up some lost time for last year's brief duck season. It so happened that last year our Daisy had a litter of pups just a week before the regular opener of duck season. Needless to say I did not get much duck hunting in last Fall caring for her and the pups!
Ben was not able to make it out for the early teal opener, but I had the opportunity to hunt with the "Cliff's" (Cliff Jr. & Sr.). We drove down from Rockton to Thomson, IL on Friday evening. The motel in Thomson had a nice fire pit outside the restaurant and bar. It was a clear cool evening and so we decided to sit outside at the fire pit with some cigars and drinks.
While talking about business, family, the dogs and so on, Sr. mentioned that it had been almost 24 years since he had been duck hunting. In addition, Cliff Jr. mentioned that he had not been duck hunting before. I began thinking that I really hope that I can put them on some birds tomorrow!
I always have a hard time sleeping the night before duck opener and this night was no exception. After waking early and tracking down some coffee (good luck finding coffee at 4am in Savanna!), we hit the river good and early. The moon was still out despite the weather report calling for rain.
After a 20 minute run, we set the decoys and readied for the morning. Teal quickly began showing up about 40 minutes before sunrise. Mallards, woodys and teal zipped through the spread, and many plopped down in the lily pads just yards from the boat. Once legal shooting time commenced (sunrise for early teal), we quickly had some opportunities at teal working the decoy spread. Cliff Jr. bagged the first teal of the morning which ended up being the only greenwing we bagged that day, (the rest of the teal were bluewings). Cliff Sr. bagged the next teal of the morning on his first shot.
We had steady shooting throughout the morning. Good numbers of woodys and mallards worked the spread, so it was essential to properly identify incoming birds. In addition, huge flocks of white pelicans worked up and down the river. Although large in size and seemingly cumbersome, it is impressive how they fly with little effort. Large numbers of shorebirds also flew steadily throughout the morning. As you can see from the photos we were set up in a large patch of lily pads. It still amazes me every time I see the size of the lily pads on the river!
In all, we had great shooting and I really enjoyed the company of the "Cliff's" and hope they can make it back down for another duck hunt later in the season.
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