As we were driving to the Honey Hole, it dawned on me that this would be my last trip of the year to this fantastic hunting spot and for any more ducks I’d have to wait until the special teal season in the middle of September. Mickey, Patrick and I arrived at our spot, it was still wet and slippery from the rain, we’ve had rain for the past 2 days, but we slogged in, put out the decoys and settled back to await legal shooting time.
It’s always tempting to pop one a minute or two before time, but we didn’t have the chance, because no ducks showed. Ten minutes after, 5 big ducks, too gloomy to identify them, were cruising along, noticed our decoys, circled and set their wings. We popped up and greeted them, 6 booms later, 4 were down, big fat gadwalls. We picked up 2 more singles and by 9:00 we were gathering up the decoys and started our walk out.
On our way back to Goldthwaite, Patrick noticed a big bunch of ducks in a winter wheat field. We turned around to get a better look at them. It wasn’t just a bunch of ducks, there were over 2,000 feeding in this one wet, field, it almost looked like blackbirds, but rest assured, they were all kinds of ducks! No wonder we finished so early, the ducks were out feeding and not around the Honey Hole. Patrick cleaned ‘em and his take was that they were northern birds and had fattened up on their way down, in fact, I’ll have to trim the fat off of the breasts!
We have found a wonderful way to cook ducks and now with the season closing, I’ll let everyone in on the secret. Take 4 duck breasts, trim off all the fat, then soak in milk for 24 hours. After soaking, for big ducks, cut the breast in half, then wash off. For teal, no need to halve the breasts, but still wash. Cut in half 4 pieces of bacon, then slice up 2 jalapenos, we use jalapeno quarters from the store, lay the 8 pieces of bacon on the duck breasts, top each with a slice of jalapeno and grill slowly, until the bacon is done. Rice goes well with this, and if you’re a wine drinker, a good Texas Red tops it off.
On our way home we were already planning for the next duck season!