day 232 12-6-2009 133 to go

Day 232-133 to go
12-6-2009 Sun
10:30AM-4:30PM

Weather: N7, clear, 31°, 30.19 steady
H20: Probably above normal, clear and quite fast


Caught

1. Drake mallards-2 (Josh)

Location

La Crosse River

Partners

Josh

Comments

Today Josh and I floated the La Crosse River between Bangor and West Salem. The weather has really changed to winter and ninety percent of the surface water in the area is frozen over. I figured any ducks still in the area would be resting in the river. Well, I do not think there are many ducks around as the river was pretty void of ducks.
The float took about two and one half hours to get down to the Lake Neshonic delta. Josh was able to get two mallards on the float and all I got was feathers. The one drake Josh bagged was fairly interesting. Josh was the up-front gunner and I was the paddler. We jumped a lone drake and Josh fired multiple times but the duck flew off unscathed - or so we thought. After a little ribbing from me and floating about another one hundred yards we rounded a corner and lo and behold there lay a dead drake mallard. After Josh picked up the bird I was on the receiving end of some ribbing.
The trip back up river was not flawless. We used a small outboard for the upriver trip. I had filled the tank on the motor but the distance was much farther and the current much faster than I had anticipated. Guess what? We ran out of go juice about three-quarters of the way back to the truck! The last quarter of the trip back on manual power was definitely taxing. If I would have been a native indian centuries ago traveling by canoe I do not think I would have ever made it home. I probably would have ended up in the Gulf of Mexico!