Dealing With Ducks And Turkeys!
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Opening Weekend Lake Toho Kissimmee Florida, Nothing is better than opening day for duck hunting! Friday November 20th was finally here and Mike Otto and David Daniels loaded up their Starcraft pop up camper and headed to Lake Toho on the beautiful Kissimmee lake chain. Mike, Dave and I were packed up and ready to do a camp/duck hunt in complete style right in the heart of the Florida marsh country.
We pulled into South Port Park campground and set up our camp and found that the reports of Ring-necked Duck sightings weren’t exactly numerous. In other words, we weren’t going to loose sleep with visions of huge flocks of ducks keeping the sun out of our eyes. We didn’t mind too much because we are mostly here to enjoy the camping, the campfires, cooking and also the non-stop jabbing at one another. read more . . .
Friday afternoon we dropped the airboat a few hours before dark and headed seven miles into the lake to scout. We saw a few ring necks take off and fly, but the numbers weren’t good. At dark we focused on our dinner and decided to not loose sleep over it.
Opening day, Saturday the 21st, we woke and prepared the Go-Devil boat and headed to our spot at 4 am. Mike and David were responsible for the checklist for our hunt that included the Coleman single stove to cook our eggs and Uncle John Pride’s Sausage in the duck blind. Breakfast in the blind is a tradition.
As we prepared the blind with our palm fronds in the pitch dark, it was finally time for breakfast! We couldn’t have set up that blind fast enough so we can get the Coleman fired up. All we had on our mind was the eggs and sausage cooking. But somebody forgot the matches back at camp.
As the sun started to gray the skies and it was legal shooting time, the lake sounded like a war zone. Although starved for breakfast, we only managed to bag three ring necked ducks. Not one duck flew into our decoys. We were disappointed with both the poor hunting and the lack of our traditional breakfast in the blind, which never happened. We wrapped up our hunt and headed for camp were the matches were sitting in the camper. We ate our delayed breakfast and planned our evening hunt.
We decided to head for some woods for both Wood ducks and mottled ducks. We found a beautiful spot off the lake that allowed us to hide the airboat and get out and wade in the marsh under a beautiful cover of Cypress trees dressed in Spanish moss. Before we hunted that spot, we scouted a dozen Mottled Ducks and green heads, so we were confident with our new spot and a different style of hunt. We set out some decoys in the flooded field and kicked back under the cypress and waited. Within a half hour we had our limit of mottled ducks. The hunt was a success and we decided to visit the spot again the next morning, Sunday.
Sunday came and the weather was calm. There was no wind and the ducks weren’t flying. The lake sounded quiet and different than on Saturday. It was dark and we hiding under the cypress trees and waiting for the ducks to make their way to our decoys. We saw a total of six ducks pass by and flare on our decoys but they wanted nothing to do with us. Oddly enough, unbeknownst to us, in the trees above us a big Osceola turkey had roosted. As he flew down and his wings flapped hard it just about scared us out of our waders. He landed in the flooded field near our decoys and Mike Otto fired and dropped him once his feet hit the grass. That Tom didn’t know what hit him. I said to Mike, “I thought we were duck hunting?” Mike said, “We are but there are no ducks. So it is fall turkey season, let’s eat a turkey.” I said, “Ok with me.”
Once we headed home from our weekend opener, we heard of great numbers of ducks south of Kissimmee and into Lake Okeechobee. It pays to do your scouting many days in advance before the opening season. Early scouting can help and make your hunt a little more successful than ours. We still had a blast and the camping was great. We just needed to do our scouting a little bit more intensivelyand also bring along some extra matches!!
Article layout by BP Designs
s
Opening Weekend Lake Toho Kissimmee Florida, Nothing is better than opening day for duck hunting! Friday November 20th was finally here and Mike Otto and David Daniels loaded up their Starcraft pop up camper and headed to Lake Toho on the beautiful Kissimmee lake chain. Mike, Dave and I were packed up and ready to do a camp/duck hunt in complete style right in the heart of the Florida marsh country.
We pulled into South Port Park campground and set up our camp and found that the reports of Ring-necked Duck sightings weren’t exactly numerous. In other words, we weren’t going to loose sleep with visions of huge flocks of ducks keeping the sun out of our eyes. We didn’t mind too much because we are mostly here to enjoy the camping, the campfires, cooking and also the non-stop jabbing at one another. read more . . .
Friday afternoon we dropped the airboat a few hours before dark and headed seven miles into the lake to scout. We saw a few ring necks take off and fly, but the numbers weren’t good. At dark we focused on our dinner and decided to not loose sleep over it.
Opening day, Saturday the 21st, we woke and prepared the Go-Devil boat and headed to our spot at 4 am. Mike and David were responsible for the checklist for our hunt that included the Coleman single stove to cook our eggs and Uncle John Pride’s Sausage in the duck blind. Breakfast in the blind is a tradition.
As we prepared the blind with our palm fronds in the pitch dark, it was finally time for breakfast! We couldn’t have set up that blind fast enough so we can get the Coleman fired up. All we had on our mind was the eggs and sausage cooking. But somebody forgot the matches back at camp.
As the sun started to gray the skies and it was legal shooting time, the lake sounded like a war zone. Although starved for breakfast, we only managed to bag three ring necked ducks. Not one duck flew into our decoys. We were disappointed with both the poor hunting and the lack of our traditional breakfast in the blind, which never happened. We wrapped up our hunt and headed for camp were the matches were sitting in the camper. We ate our delayed breakfast and planned our evening hunt.
We decided to head for some woods for both Wood ducks and mottled ducks. We found a beautiful spot off the lake that allowed us to hide the airboat and get out and wade in the marsh under a beautiful cover of Cypress trees dressed in Spanish moss. Before we hunted that spot, we scouted a dozen Mottled Ducks and green heads, so we were confident with our new spot and a different style of hunt. We set out some decoys in the flooded field and kicked back under the cypress and waited. Within a half hour we had our limit of mottled ducks. The hunt was a success and we decided to visit the spot again the next morning, Sunday.
Sunday came and the weather was calm. There was no wind and the ducks weren’t flying. The lake sounded quiet and different than on Saturday. It was dark and we hiding under the cypress trees and waiting for the ducks to make their way to our decoys. We saw a total of six ducks pass by and flare on our decoys but they wanted nothing to do with us. Oddly enough, unbeknownst to us, in the trees above us a big Osceola turkey had roosted. As he flew down and his wings flapped hard it just about scared us out of our waders. He landed in the flooded field near our decoys and Mike Otto fired and dropped him once his feet hit the grass. That Tom didn’t know what hit him. I said to Mike, “I thought we were duck hunting?” Mike said, “We are but there are no ducks. So it is fall turkey season, let’s eat a turkey.” I said, “Ok with me.”Once we headed home from our weekend opener, we heard of great numbers of ducks south of Kissimmee and into Lake Okeechobee. It pays to do your scouting many days in advance before the opening season. Early scouting can help and make your hunt a little more successful than ours. We still had a blast and the camping was great. We just needed to do our scouting a little bit more intensivelyand also bring along some extra matches!!
Article layout by BP Designs
