Waterfowl Youth Hunt 2007

Well the famous quote of the day came from another father at the event. "Ya know it must be love cause why else would ya get up at 1am. drive here, set everything up to duck hunt and not be able to fire a single shot.." i agree 100 percent... even though i did not get to shoot i had the best fun pointing the ducks to death... Cody and I arrived at San Jacinto wildlife area about 3:15am, we walked immediately to the office and i asked another hunter if they started calling reservation numbers yet.. he said that they are on number 1, we had number 2.. i walked in and the officer asked if i was number 2 and proceeded to take Cody's reservation card and hunting license for verification, then on to pick a blind. Tom the supervisor there is fantastic, he told us that what the next hot blind was, B-3 the water was a little deep but a good place to be..if ya have waders, Cody did i had just brought my hip waders. Tom said that i might get wet, so that's duck hunting. After getting instructions on how to find the blind and where to park we paused to talk with another hunter and eat donuts and have juice and coffee.. it was just a little damp from the dew starting to form on the cars when we got there. At this point is was probably in the hi 30's. There was a full moon so i really did not need a flashlight to see where i needed to set up the decoys, almost. After setting up i climbed into the blind with Cody and sat down only to realize i put the decoys behind us. Off back into the water to pick them all up and move them to the front of the blind. Finally we are set and now wait for shoot time which is 30 minuets before sun rise. while waiting we could hear duck tearing through the air as they winged past, they sound like little jets. Well we started to hear others starting to shoot so hey its time. they were flying everywhere, Cody was like a anti aircraft gunner punching holes in the air as they winged by. Finally a hit about the 15th shot... a nice cinnamon teal folded up.. I can say he should have shot his limit but missed a lot, an awful lot. He really needs to practice more. Well one of the rules of the wildlife areas is that you are only allowed to have one box of ammo with you, 25 rounds. well Cody ran out before sunrise and i had to make a run for the truck for more. By this time the temp had dropped a lot and the shallow water had frozen over and there was ice all over the truck. Burrrrr. and i am wet... but hey that's duck hunting... I got him some more ammo and he did manage to bag one more duck and missed on a whole lot more... By 10 am it had slowed down a lot and we need to get back to the main office for the BBQ that the Department of Fish and Game put on for the whole group. This whole trip was free.. it is designed to promote hunting with the youth.. There were 34 kids, 15 years old and younger who attended this year about 10 more than last as well as about 8 girls were present compared to 2 last year... after the lunch they give out prizes to the kids that were donated by the local merchants and hunters. Cody won some real nice hunting gear. He is ready to do it again next year... I have the pictures to prove it this time...