Colorado Duck Opener

10/3/09. Last Saturday I found myself west of Brush, CO on some state property with my friends Forrest, Dave and Forrest's lady friend for the 2009 first split opener. We arrived at 4:30 and the four of set out for our reserved pond. We set out our 3 dozen floaters, 2 jerk-strings and 4 robo-ducks and settled in for 30 minutes before sunrise. As we were setting up the birds started moving in and out of our area, which had recently been flooded by the D.O.W. As shooting light approached a sophisticated group of yahoo's were shooting only 11 minutes early, as it was still pitch black out minus the moon light. As the minutes counted down we had 6-8 fully dressed sprigs land in our dekes, very dissappointing they didn't hang around till shooting light.

As 6:21 hit, it sounded like a small war just erupted in Hillrose, CO. The four of us waited patiently for the big birds to start flying. Much to our disappointment the ducks that were working our spread were forced to swing over the corner of another pond and luckily those boys had no problem throwing some steel at everything. As the sun began to rise the birds started to pour in. The first ducks to commit were 3 mallards, luckily for us, none made it out, with the 3 boys all making simple 1 shot kills. While trying to hold of on the 1000's of teal in the area a poor single made his death plunge right at me where he was backpedaling at 10 yrds. 2 shots, 2 kills. Then it seemed about every 5 minutes or so we had new flocks working the spread, with the robos and jerks in full gear every duck wanted into our spot. This lead to 3 widgeons and 2 susies going down in seconds of one another.

By 7:15 we were at 14 birds to our 24 duck limit. Around this time we had a group of 4 mallards working the spread as they commited in 2 broke of to my side, and for the first time in long time I had a two shot drake Mallard double. My day had to end by 8:00 for soccer so as a flock of BWT came across the horizon, it was decided they should meet their end, eventually all 6 did as the lone survivor decided to circle back to check on his brethern, poor decision indeed. I was out at 8:15 and left them 5 short of the final count. By 9:15 Forrest let me know they were all done and packing up the gear. By far my best CO opener and one of the better openers ever as far as shooting and big ducks go.