We’re two days away.

Saturday morning, September 26, Minnesota’s regular duck season finally opens, and we’ve officially reached the point where I don’t think there’s much left to gain by adding anything else. The boat can always be organized a little better. Another decoy could always be rigged. I could probably find three more things in the trailer that I suddenly decide need to be moved somewhere else. There’s always one more battery to check, one more bag to pack and one more piece of gear that seems absolutely necessary at 9:30 Friday night.

But eventually you have to stop preparing for duck season and start thinking about the actual hunt.

That’s where I’m at now.

Tuesday, I wrote about what we’re watching heading into opener: birds, water, weather, hunting pressure and backup locations. Over these final two days, I want to take that information and mentally hunt Saturday morning before we ever leave the driveway. Not because I think I can predict exactly what the ducks are going to do. If waterfowl hunting has taught me anything, it’s that ducks are exceptionally good at making you look stupid the moment you think you have them figured out. But I can eliminate a lot of the decisions we would otherwise have to make in the dark.

And opening morning moves fast.

The First Flock Might Be the Most Important Flock We See

Everybody wants to shoot the first flock.

I get it.

You’ve waited all year. It’s finally legal shooting time. You hear wings before you can see anything, somebody whispers that there are ducks coming, and suddenly your heart rate is approximately 400 beats per minute.

But I’ve been thinking about that first flock a little differently.

Those first birds might give us more useful information than anything we learned during the previous week of scouting.

Scouting tells us where ducks have been. The first flock tells us what ducks think about what we built.

There’s a big difference.

I want to pay attention to where those first birds appear, how high they are, which direction they’re traveling and when they first notice our spread. If they make a turn, I want to know what caused it. If they slide to one side, I want to remember which side. If they get directly over the decoys and suddenly climb, I’m immediately wondering what they saw.

The temptation on opening morning is to call at everything, stare at everything and try to force every duck into the hole.

Sometimes the better move is simply watching.

If that first flock locks up from 200 yards and sails directly toward the spread, we probably don’t need to change much.

If they make one swing and consistently want the opposite side of the hole, that’s information.

If they get to 70 yards and suddenly flare, that’s information too.

Maybe the hide isn’t as good as we thought. Maybe the boat is showing. Maybe Ember’s blind sticks out more from the air than it does from five feet away. Maybe somebody’s face is glowing. Maybe our landing hole makes perfect sense to a human standing in the marsh and absolutely no sense to a duck looking down from 100 feet.

The first flock doesn’t necessarily need to die for it to improve the hunt.

Sometimes it can tell you exactly what needs fixing.

I Don’t Want to Spend the First Hour Fighting Our Setup

One thing I’ve become more convinced of is that a waterfowl setup should be easy to understand.

Not for us.

For the birds.

We can stand there and explain exactly why every decoy is where it is. Ducks don’t care about our explanation.

They either like it or they don’t.

That’s why I’m leaning harder toward simple spreads, especially early in the season. I’m not interested in putting every decoy we own on the water simply because we own them. I want enough birds to create visibility and confidence while leaving an obvious place for incoming ducks to finish.

Wind will determine a lot of that.

Generally, ducks want to finish into the wind, but real wetlands aren’t diagrams. Shorelines, vegetation, open pockets and where birds already want to go can change everything. That’s where scouting matters.

If we’ve been watching ducks consistently land along one edge of a pothole, I’m not going to ignore that because some perfect decoy diagram on the internet says my landing hole belongs somewhere else.

I’m trying to recreate what the ducks were already doing before we arrived.

That’s really what a good decoy spread is.

We’re not inventing duck behavior.

We’re imitating it.

A couple natural-looking groups, some space between them, movement where it makes sense and a clean place for birds to land can accomplish a lot.

Then leave it alone long enough to learn something.

Give the Birds Twenty Minutes Before You Tear Everything Apart

This is something I’m going to remind myself of Saturday morning.

Don’t overreact.

Waterfowl hunters might be the greatest overthinkers in the outdoor world. One flock doesn’t finish and suddenly the decoys are wrong, the call sounds terrible, the jerk rig needs to move, the blind isn’t brushed enough and apparently the entire migration has shifted 40 miles west.

Sometimes those ducks just didn’t want to be there.

I want to see repetition before making a major adjustment.

If three or four groups approach from the same direction and all slide toward the same side, now I’m interested. If multiple flocks get to roughly the same distance and flare, I’m looking hard at concealment. If ducks consistently want to land 30 yards outside the spread, I’m moving something.

But I’m not rebuilding everything after one weird group.

The goal is to make adjustments based on evidence rather than frustration.

That might mean moving six decoys instead of 30. It might mean moving the jerk rig. It might mean changing how we’re calling. It might mean everybody sitting farther back into cover.

And sometimes the adjustment is doing less.

That’s the one that can be difficult.

Opening Morning Calling Doesn’t Need to Be a Concert

I’m excited to call ducks again.

Goose hunting scratches a lot of the same itch, but there’s something different about hearing mallards answer in the dark.

Opening morning also has a way of making everybody want to call more than necessary.

Birds are everywhere, adrenaline is high and every duck within half a mile suddenly gets treated like it needs a full sales presentation.

I’m trying to approach calling the same way I’m approaching the spread.

Start with what the birds give us.

If a flock is already coming, I don’t need to convince them to come.

They’re coming.

Let them.

If they start drifting, then I have a reason to say something. If they respond positively, keep working them. If every time I call they slide farther away, I should probably stop trying to win the argument.

That sounds obvious sitting here two days before opener.

It becomes considerably less obvious when there are 20 ducks circling at 70 yards.

Calling should be communication, not background noise.

The same applies to motion. If a jerk rig is making the spread look alive and birds are responding to it, great. If ducks repeatedly seem uncomfortable with something, I’m willing to shut it down and see what happens.

Opening morning gives us enough bird traffic to experiment.

We just have to pay attention to the results.

The Hide Still Matters More Than the Toys

For all the money I’ve spent on waterfowl hunting—and Danielle can probably provide a more accurate accounting than I would like—the cheapest thing in the spread might still be the most important.

Not moving.

We obsess over realistic decoys. We buy better calls. We add motion. We build nicer blinds.

Then six ducks are working beautifully and somebody turns their head like they’re watching a tennis match.

Gone.

Saturday morning, I’m going to be reminding myself of this constantly.

Let one person watch the birds when they’re behind us.

Keep faces down.

Keep Ember contained.

Trust the call.

Trust the spread.

When birds disappear behind you, there is an almost uncontrollable urge to turn around and find them.

Don’t.

If they come back around, we’ll know soon enough.

Early-season ducks haven’t spent months being hunted yet, but that doesn’t make them blind. If anything, the combination of good daylight, green vegetation and hunters who haven’t practiced hiding for several months can make opening weekend surprisingly unforgiving.

We can have the perfect spot and the perfect spread.

If we’re moving, none of it matters.

Ember Might Be My Biggest Wild Card Saturday

This will probably be the part of opening morning I’m watching closest.

Not because I’m worried about whether Ember will retrieve a duck.

I’m pretty confident we’ve answered that question.

Early goose season gave her exactly what she needed. Eleven Canada goose retrieves over one weekend was a massive jump forward, and the difference in her confidence has been incredible to watch. She understands the game now.

Maybe a little too well.

The challenge has shifted from getting Ember excited about birds to convincing Ember that she doesn’t personally control when the retrieving portion of the hunt begins.

That’s why duck opener will be interesting.

Goose hunting has moments of chaos, but duck hunting can be constant stimulation. Ducks flying before shooting time. Birds landing somewhere they shouldn’t. Shooting from other hunters. Ducks splashing into the water. Cripples swimming. Multiple birds down at once.

For an excited young retriever that has recently decided hunting is the greatest activity ever invented, that’s a lot.

So my definition of a successful opening morning with Ember isn’t a giant pile of ducks.

I want steadiness.

If she watches birds work and stays put, that’s a win.

If guns go off and she waits for me to send her, that’s a win.

If a duck lands somewhere she can see it and she remains in the blind, that’s a huge win.

The retrieves are the reward.

That’s what we’re trying to teach her now.

She’s already shown us that she can do the fun part.

Now we’re building the boring part that eventually makes a really good hunting dog.

Don’t Let Opening-Day Excitement Make Decisions for You

This applies to more than the dog.

Opening morning can make hunters rush.

It’s dark. Birds are flying. Somebody shoots nearby. You think legal shooting time must have started because somebody else fired.

Check the time yourself.

A group comes through and you aren’t completely confident about the species.

Let them go.

A cripple sails toward nasty cover and another flock appears overhead.

Deal with the cripple.

A bird falls somewhere questionable.

Mark it immediately.

There will be more opportunities.

Especially early in the season, identification deserves extra attention. Immature birds and eclipse-plumage drakes can make some ducks much harder to identify than the bright, fully colored birds we picture when somebody says “mallard” or “wood duck.”

If I can’t identify it confidently, I’m not shooting it.

That isn’t passing up an opportunity.

That’s hunting responsibly.

The same goes for retrieving birds. I don’t want the excitement of another flock to make us forget about a bird already on the water. Watch where it falls, pick a landmark and take care of it.

A duck in the hand matters more than the flock currently circling.

Our Backup Plan Needs a Backup Plan

Tuesday I talked about having Plans A, B and C.

Two days out, I want those plans to become more specific.

Plan B can’t just be another pin on my phone.

How do we access it?

Where do we park?

Where does the wind need to be?

Where can we hide?

Is the water deep enough for the boat? Is it shallow enough to walk? Is the bottom firm or are we stepping into three feet of mud? Where have birds actually been using it?

Those questions matter because Saturday morning is the worst possible time to begin answering them.

If we pull into our first choice and somebody is already there, I don’t want to sit in the truck debating for 20 minutes.

Wish them luck and move.

There’s something freeing about that.

When you have legitimate backup options, you don’t feel like you have to force a hunt.

That’s a lesson I’m trying to carry through the entire season.

There will always be another hunt.

Protect the birds. Respect other hunters. Don’t turn one morning into a competition over a piece of public ground.

We can go somewhere else.

Friday Night Should Be Boring

I said this Tuesday, and I’m doubling down on it.

By Friday evening, I want to be finished.

Not mostly finished.

Finished.

I want the boat ready, batteries charged, guns ready, shells packed, dog equipment loaded, decoys selected and clothing laid out. I want to know where we’re going and what we’re doing if somebody beats us there.

Then I want to sit down.

Maybe have a drink.

Talk with Danielle.

Probably check the weather one more time even though it won’t accomplish anything.

And go to bed.

We’ve spent months getting ready for this.

At some point, preparation becomes procrastination.

Saturday morning isn’t going to be perfect. Something will go wrong. Something always does. We’ll forget something, break something or discover that the ducks apparently did not receive the same weather forecast we did.

That’s waterfowl hunting.

The goal isn’t to eliminate every possible problem.

It’s to be prepared enough that when something changes, we can make a good decision instead of panicking.

Then the Marsh Gets Quiet

This is the part I’ve missed.

Not the shooting.

Not even the ducks.

It’s those last few minutes before legal shooting time.

Everything is finally set.

The headlamps are off.

The boat is hidden.

Ember is in her blind.

You can barely make out the decoys anymore because the sky hasn’t quite started changing.

For the first time all morning, nobody has anything left to do.

Then you hear it.

Wings.

Maybe wood ducks squealing somewhere through the timber. Maybe teal ripping past before anybody can even turn their head. Maybe a mallard quacks from somewhere out in the darkness.

That’s when it becomes real again.

All summer we’ve talked about duck season.

We’ve bought gear for duck season.

We’ve trained the dog for duck season.

We’ve worked on the boat, rigged decoys, organized the trailer, practiced calling, scouted water and stared at maps for duck season.

Now we’re two days away from actually hunting ducks.

Saturday morning, the preparation ends.

The birds get a vote.

And I can’t wait to see what they tell us.

– Max & Danielle
Burley Outdoors