It was a cold January weekend, myself and a couple buddies decided to venture away from home to try a few new spots. We left Friday late morning and arrived at our destination area around noon, proceeded to do some scouting and found a good number of geese using the edge of a field that had great cover. Sold… We knew exactly what we were going to be doing in the morning. This was a public area opening at a specific time on a first come first serve basis, we decided to get there early and see what the line was like. 3 trucks in front of us… not bad, hopefully they didn’t have the same thing in mind as us, they didn’t. We got our sweet spot and proceeded to set up, well to make a long story short the geese decided to go to a different spot that morning. While waiting for the geese we kept noticing mallard dropping into a small backwater channel about 400 yards from where we were so we decided to pack it up and go check it out. The wind was perfect and these big mallards really wanted to be in this specific spot. We threw out 6 decoys, hid in the reeds and watched greenhead after greenhead come in wings cupped with no hesitation. It was a great shoot.

The next morning arrives and we wait in line again, get to our new secret spot but something was different. The wind was from the west not the east like the day before. We wait out shoot time and wait and wait and wait some more. Nothing…. this sucks, nothing like the day before. We are just about ready to pack it up after about 3 hrs of no birds and freezing conditions when this flock of wood ducks comes in for a visit. Now I have never seen a wood duck and I don’t shoot cause I couldn’t ID them quickly let alone pick out a drake. My buddies open up, we end up with about 3 flights, I have no birds and they have 2 each. Suddenly a single Drakes comes right in Wings cupped, I can see him clear as day, game over. My first wood duck was in hand.

This is a beautiful bird and I have heard they taste great but after much consideration I decided I need to mount him. I call up Jeremy at Uplanders Taxidermy and schedule a visit, He lets me pick out a nice piece of driftwood for the base and I leave my prize. 5 months later Jeremy gives me a call “Your Bird is Finished” this bird turned out beautiful and I will always remember that day. What a way to keep the memory alive. Thanks Jeremy for a great mount, and thank you mother nature for the beautiful bounty.