Three For Three

No, this isn’t about yours truly going 3 for 3 in a softball game, but about an unusual duck hunt one of my friends and I went on.

On Friday night in mid December, Bill Priddy and I met at our duck and fishing lease near Danbury, Texas, then went to the local caf© and ate a steak that I still remember and turned in early in preparation for the next day’s duck hunt.  Up well before the sun, we ate a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon prepared by Mrs. Atkins, wife of our leases’ guide/caretaker, stepped outside and were greeted by a calm, bright early morning, with the new day just a strip of orangeish light on the eastern horizon.

We went through the motions of loading the decoys and our guns, then followed them into the skiff, started the engine and putted out to our duck blind.  All the while, knowing that such a bright, clear, blue bird day would lead to, at best, not many ducks flying around.  There’d be a flurry about shooting time and, after that, it would stop completely.

We “hit the nail on the head”, because right at shooting time, had one flight of green wing teal buzz our decoys and we obliged by shooting 4 holes in the sky.  We waited for 45 more minutes, saw no ducks, then decided to go bass fishing.  We started the motor, picked up the decoys, putted back to the dock, oiled and put our guns up, got out our rods and reels out, replaced the outboard with a trolling motor, started fishing and not 50 yards from the dock, Bill picked up a small bass.

In a bad, old picture, Bill holds up my 3 for 3 on bass, showing the 2 big ones, with the smallest being behind the bass on the right.

Bill was using a motor oil colored, worm, rigged Texas style and I had on my trusty, yellow Piggy Boat, spinner bait.  A few casts after Bill had scored, I had a hard strike and was into a real nice bass.  Two jumps later I lipped it, hefted it up and estimated its weight at 2 pounds.  Another cast into the same spot, another hard strike and I was tied up with a real nice one.  No jumps, but several wallows later, along with a nice run, I lipped it, hefted it up and guessed, 4-1/2 pounds!  Two in a row, so I cast back into the same spot and was greeted with a bone jarring strike.  This one pulled out all the stops, runs, wallows and 3 jumps later, I lipped it, hefted it up and guessed 3 pounds!  Wow, 3 for 3, nice bass, 2,3 and 4 plus, pounds and Bill just sat and watched the show.

For a duck hunt, this wasn’t a bad fishing trip!