We decided on Wednesday to head up to Oklahoma for the closing weekend of season. We left at about 4 Thursday afternoon and drove through all that crappy weather in east Texas. We got to the final destination at about 1. The next morning we hunted a timber hole that they had been pumping well water into the keep it open. It didn't open it up as well as expected but there was still plenty of open water for the birds to work. We shot our 5 limits of mallards that morning and 4 kicker ducks which were wigeon drakes. We were taking turns shooting singles and if you missed it was free game for everyone else. Our friend who just got into duck hunting this year missed and I got up and killed the single greenhead and sure enough it was banded! Banded in Saskatchewan in 2005. The dogs had a real tough time in the ice but I think they'd do it all over again.















That afternoon the wind was blowing about 25 out of the west so we set up on a fence row and pass shot geese. It was perfect. Concentration 500 yards behind us, wind at our back, sun in their eyes. If everyone had been in the spot I was in we could have easily shot 70+ snow geese. I shot 17 of the 30 snows. Thousands of specks. Had I known that it was going to be 10 yard shots all afternoon we could have killed some beautiful birds. We still got a couple nice ones. My brother shot a banded speck. Banded in Dead Horse, Alaska in 2009. 2 bands in one day! It didn't help we were all shooting single shots due to the sand blowing up in the breach of all our guns.

Here is my pile from that afternoon

Saturday morning we hunted another little timber hole and shot 22/25 greenheads and a couple wigeon and a pintail. Three other people hunted a different hole and shot 3 limits very quick.





He picked up all of our coasters that landed on the thin ice





Here is just our birds



And here is the total from both groups that morning.



Sunday morning could have been any worse conditions but I couldn't have picked better company. My girlfriend and I hunted a flooded corn field with both of our dogs and finished out the season strong with 10 greenheads, a pintail, and a nice little greenwing. All the photo credit goes to her by the way. She has gotten pretty handy with a camera! I am very thankful for that because I am horrible when it comes to taking pictures of anything. We will have these memories forever now.

john paul,

I HATE YOU.

Wow. Great hunts and a really nice report. The photos look really good. Congrats to you. You have lots of memories from those hunts.

Nice post, great photos! Congrats on a nice closer!

Great way to end the season! Looks like y'all had a blast and really got after them!

Awesome man, love the pics and congrats on the band.

Atta boy! Glad y'all ended it strong. Nice pics.

Great dog pics...

Thanks again bro! It's a weekend I won't soon forget!

awesome!

Awesome way to end it!

Never did kill a band this year. But then again, there's always snow goose CO right around the corner

Congrats!

And tell your gf "nice pics"

This is the second banded mallard I have killed in Oklahoma and they were killed within about 60 yards of each other. The first was killed 2 years ago. I had probably killed 300 or so mallards in my lifetime before I killed the first, and then had only killed about 40 more when I shot this one. It's kinda funny how that works. I killed a banded teal when I was 8 and didn't shoot another band until 2 years ago, right before I turned 22, and have killed 4 since then.

That's badass stuff right there.
Congrats!

Great pictures!!!

Sweet

My only band was from a racing pigeon. Oh well.

Great hunts. 28ga's?

All with 28's except for the geese.

Man you must have some good luck. I've averaged about 300 birds a season for the past 4 years and only been on 2 hunts where bands were taken.One was mine, one was another guys. This past teal season we killed over 1200 birds on the ranch we hunt in El Campo and only killed one band.

It always seems like they come at the most random times too. Fingers crossed for next year I guess!

Even better. I've started hunting more and more with my 28ga. I bought a case of steel 6's from Roger's this year, but I've noticed on mallards that more times than not it will criple the bird. We reloaded Hevi shot and Nice shot in 7's for it. Both will flat out hammer a late season mallard. I never felt under gunned with the 28ga when I was shooting the reloads. My buddy and I determined we will stick with hevi or nice shot on the late season mallards, and I'll burn up the steel 6's during teal season.

Curious what y'all shoot?

A lot of depends on what kind of birds you are killing as I'm sure you know. A guy who shoots 50 mallards a year probably has ten times the chance of shooting a band than a guy who shoots 300 gadwall and spoonies every year. I know people who have shot 15 mottled ducks in a season and 8 of those were banded. I've probably killed 100 in my life and only shot one with a band. So I wouldn't say I'm that lucky!