Here we were just a few feet off the side of a main road, building blinds at the edge of a mud puddle facing a 3.5 million dollar waterfowl impoundment just 100 yards away on the other side of the field. Pine bows, wax myrtle branches, and some broom straw would have to suffice today as a chair blind would just be far to conspicuous to these extremely shy birds this time of year. Neither of us brought blinds with us, instead opting to just use natural material that was available there along the side of the road. Robert parked his truck down the road away and we hauled stuff off the edge of the road to the “puddle.” With the 5 inches of snow that had just melted off the day before, this low section of the field had flooded out and now ranged from 4 to 16 inches of water. We were 20 minutes past the property that the two of us had been working from the past couple days and time was now of the essence. With this information in hand, Robert Smith and I decided that considering nothing else was panning out and we were still trying to earn our keep that we would give it a whirl.Īround 3 pm the two of us found ourselves sitting in Robert’s truck staring at what was essentially nothing more than a mud puddle on the edge of this field.

Each afternoon as they came out of the property they would jump these birds. Near one of the waterfowl impoundments Ben Clewis and Doug Gardner had noticed that in the evening a handful of mallards would drop into this little section of flooded winter wheat. Yet, the birds were few and far between.įinally, maybe out of desperation, a couple of us changed tactics one evening. Each day we were treated to multimillion dollar duck ponds that were being managed by some of the top wildlife managers and waterfowl biologists in the country.

For this shoot, the Waterfowl Association had given us access to some of the best private duck impoundments in the entire state. Temperatures ranged from the high 20’s to mid thirties in the morning and the day before we had 5 inches of snow on the ground. 5:20 we were at the lodge for a couple cups of coffee and to finalize where everyone would be that morning. By this point things had become pretty routine for us. So here we were, 5 days into a shoot for the South Carolina Waterfowl Association and the birds just weren’t there.

Mud puddle visuals shake