A Rio Grande Bonus by GARY R. ZAHM
Onward they came, 16 big, white-cheeked bombers on steady wings, 250 yards out and 40 yards above the latte-colored river channel. I flattened myself against the shadowed pit wall, daring not to move as I peered beneath a layer of natural grass laid atop the ring of excavated soil.
Using his Herter’s Numara Canada goose call, Dad sent out a perfect, goose-attracting riff! AH-OOO, AH-OOO, AH-OOO! The lead gander responded, banking his flock toward our setup. The slight variation in flight pattern looked as if it would bring them just over the outer edge of our decoy spread. The final, slow-moving approach seemed an eternity.
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Our late December duck hunt had started off as most Saturday jaunts afield will. Dad and I arose early and had a small breakfast as we hoped to be back early with a limit of ducks. We loaded the decoys in the car and picked up our neighbor and hunting companion, Nels Whitmire.
“Morning men,” said Nels. “I sure hope they’re flying this morning.”
“Dad and I got four mallards last Thursday evening and we saw quite a few ducks,” I said. “Imagine there will be a few left this morning.”
After a 45-minute trip south from Albuquerque, we turned east off Highway 85 at Los Chaves onto a Water Conservancy District’s ditch road. We quickly reached our turnout, parked under a towering grove of cottonwoods, unloaded our gear and began the long, cold and dark walk through the Rio Grande bottomland to our blind.
It’s a traditional ritual, carrying your gun and heavy sack of decoys over your shoulder on a well-worn trail through the thick growth of salt cedar, willow and low-hanging cottonwood branches. There is nothing more painful as a dormant, yet semi-supple willow branch coming back and slapping your cold nose or ear. On a below-freezing morning, it can sting for 10 minutes!
We soon reached our hand-dug pit blind at the river’s edge. I feel that a strategically-placed pit blind along the meandering Rio Grande works the best since the lack of dense natural cover prohibited the construction of a hotel-like, duck-flaring standup blind.
The pit blind does not have to be more than 3 feet deep if the dirt from the pit is piled along the perimeter and natural grasses and weeds are inserted into the outer slopes of the borrow piles to conceal the hidden hunters. A bench can be carved out of the back pit wall, thus allowing hunters to sit with feet on the pit’s floor and lowering the overall profile. A weather-beaten log can be placed near the blind, adding to the natural look. By the end of the season, as the ducks become more wary, the inconspicuous pit blind will pull in more ducks than a large, six-foot high tumbleweed monstrosity.
“Let’s get the decoys out before the ducks start flying,” said Dad.
We were on a side channel of the Rio Grande and the water flow was just fast enough to give the decoys a life-like motion. There was also a sandbar which gave the ducks a place to loaf in the New Mexico sunshine. A beautiful spot for visiting ducks!
We set out 40 Herter’s Tenite plastic mallard and pintail decoys in the shape of a “J” with the opening in front of the pit and facing toward the river River ducks certainly react to wind direction, but on the calmer days, they usually land against the river’s flow. Thus, the “J’s” shank would end downstream of the blind and the tighter concentration of decoys were set upstream. Ducks will follow the shank of decoys and make for the opening created in front of the blinds.
Dawn came early, with nary a cloud in the eastern sky, a typical example of New Mexico’s winter weather. The pre-dawn period, always the coldest time of the morning, had me stamping my near-frozen feet to restore circulation when legal shooting time was finally reached.
Fifteen minutes later, Nels exclaimed, “Here come the first targets up the river!”
A flock of a dozen green-winged teal slanted into the decoys. The drakes, with their chestnut-brown heads mixed with iridescent green, stood out as the flock hovered over the spread.
WHHAM, WHHAM! Nels’ gun spoke twice as a pair of drakes dropped into the backwater channel.
After missing our first shots, Dad killed a nice drake, while I scored a drake and hen “Scotch double” at 40 yards with the full choke barrel! The little green-wings, although tasty and definitely sporty, were lower on our priority list when the preference was “big” ducks destined for the 9-person family dinner table.
As the morning sun rose, large flocks of mallards began appearing to our west from harvested corn stubble on the State of New Mexico’s Los Lunas prison farm. These ducks hit the field before visible light, gorge themselves on waste grain, then take off for safer locations.
Ragged lines of ducks headed their southward to the Belen State Waterfowl Refuge, but Dad spotted a flock of about twenty mallards which were headed toward the river.
“We may get some action,” he said. “These ducks look like they just might give us a chance.”
Both Dad and I, using our Olt’s Model Perfect Mallard calls, sent forth some pleading highballs. The highball is a longer, drawn-out call which acts as an attention-getter, letting the ducks know that they’ve been seen. The flock banked and flew high above the river, chattering with gullets packed with corn. Interested, they begin to circle. We could hear the whee-whee-whee from their wings as the air whistled through the primaries. As the flock circled lower, we switched to the greeting call, which is a little faster and more excited than the highball.
Now we really had their attention. The leading hen began talking to the decoys with her falsetto quacking, while the drakes gave their more guttural calls. Lower and lower they came on each cautious circle. We switched from the greeting call to the feed call and the mallards cupped their wings and lowered their webbed feet.
“Get ready,” said Dad in a muffled whisper. “Now!”
I stood up and picked out a large drake, his green head glistening in the sunshine, then watched him fold as the modified barrel of my Winchester Model 24 double-barrel sent out a killing pattern of chilled 6’s. I missed a hen as she frantically climbed beyond shotgun range. Dad had also taken a drake while Nels had dropped a drake Mexican duck before tumbling an escaping hen mallard via the improved cylinder of his short-barreled Model 12 Winchester. Some fine roasters for the table!
As the morning passed, a few singles and pairs traded past our setup without stopping for a visit. Even the best decoys and duck calling in the world cannot bring in a duck if its mind is made up to go elsewhere.
“Get down,” Nels said. “Here comes a single from the right.”
We hunched down in the pit, keeping our movements limited and our faces hidden in the shadows cast by our clumps of natural camouflage. As the duck approached, I identified it as a drake pintail, or sprig. To me, the pintail drake in flight is the most beautiful of all ducks. His long, pointed tail and neck, together with the narrow wings, compare with a racing greyhound as it sprints after the mechanical rabbit.
Dad used his mallard call to entice this cautious of all ducks, while I worked a Herter’s pintail/wigeon call. This combination, plus the few pintail decoys scattered amongst the spread, quickly captured the loner’s attention and without hesitation, he locked up.
“You take him, Dad,” I said.
Dad rose and when the barrel of his Model 12 blotted out the drake, he squeezed the trigger, folding it in a dead-on-arrival splashdown.
A welcome retrieve and lull in the action meant time to stretch and get rid of the early morning coffee. The river bottom lapsed into peaceful tranquility, with only the ringing “klee-ye-ar” of an occasional red-shafted flicker of the warble of a meadowlark breaking the silence.
Observing the beauty of Mother Nature and her creatures is a big part of any hunting trip. Even if the ducks are not moving, much can be learned. I am always amazed at the flocks of killdeer wheeling over the sandy river banks, while the sharp whistle of a soaring red-tailed hawk adds to the outdoor kaleidoscope.
Back to the goose hunting action, I watched Dad’s eyes, the only set allowed to directly track the approaching honkers.
“Close enough, get ‘em,” Dad said. Rising to our feet, the flock swung past at 35 yards. Nels quickly dropped a honker from the middle of the flaring flock, sending up a mini-geyser of water as it hit the surface. Dad head-shot and staggered the lead gander, but it fell dead on the far bank after miraculously flying 80 yards! Both my shots hit nothing but the clear New Mexico sky.
After the retrieves were made, congratulations were in order. Nels’s goose probably weighed 8 pounds, while Dad’s flock-leading bomber would tip the scales at 10 pounds. Canada geese are uncommon around the Los Lunas area and when two of them are added to a pile of ducks, it is truly a Rio Grande bonus!
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