Duck hunting at the Mallard Bay Hunting Club

Here are a few daily bag limits (4 Teal ducks per hunter per day) of Teal. Teal are a species of small ducks; there are several variations-- Green wings, Blue wings, etc. They fly quite fast in their flocks, which come down low from the sky and dip and dive, twist and turn, and are very difficult to hit with your steel shot. A very fun duck to hunt, indeed! It is not uncommon to see flocks of 12 to 50 of them. I can remember as a young boy seeing flocks that could have easily has 75 to 100 of them swarming down from the clouds, being called down by our duck calls as we hid in our blinds, and landing in our ponds. Then, all at once, in unison, we stood up from our crouched position and unloaded a volley of steel shot into the flock. Then we set the Labradors and Golden Retrievers loose to fetch and deliver the dead and wounded to us. The ones still alive and swimming away with broken wings were pursued by us in the marsh as we wore our chest waders. One could hear a few lone shots as the wounded would then try to fly away from their pursuers, only to be handed one final, fatal, resolute shot to bring them down. The retrievers always relished in grabbing them afterwards. Team work that is as ancient and historical as the relationship between some caveman and a wolf-like dog that he tossed a bone to from his camp fire 10,000 years ago. Man's best friend.




In the above pics: Louis Turner in his "mud boat", which can traverse the shallow waters of our marsh. Mud boats are a novel Cajun vehicle: they have powerful car engines to propel them through the weeds, mud, and water Lilies, and can seat about 4hunters and two hunting dogs. Destination: the duck blinds and ponds. Seen above, is Cane...Brian Burford's 2 year-old Yellow Labroadore retriever. He is a gentle, playful, and excellent hunting dog!