"Magellan's Mississippi Opening Weekend"

We last heard from Magellan as he traveled up to the L'anguille Lounge Duck Club for the opening weekend of the Arkansas season.  That story can be found here: Magellan Visits the L'anguille Lounge Duck Club. After the Arkansas opener, Magellan traveled south down Highway 1 to meet up with Rick Daughtry for a few days of hunting Mississippi public land, seeing the good and bad of our infamous "draw system". Both stories were written about early in the year and can be found here: So It Really Is the Luck of the Draw - part 1 and here: So It Really Is the Luck of the Draw - part 2.

After Rick hunted a few days with Magellan, he passed him off to my buddy Quinn McClurg.  I met Quinn many years ago through mutual high school friends of mine, namely Quinn's hunting partner Cape Jones.  It stands to reason that if my old high school friends like you, I'll most likely do the same.  In short, Quinn's one of the good guys.  He's also a helluva hunter, and I was very glad Quinn agreed to hunt over Magellan.  I picked Magellan up from Quinn myself as I was over in that part of the world.  He had hunted with him a day or so, and I got the story you are about to read.

DATE: 11/28/2011
TEMP: 37 degrees
LOCATION: South Mississippi Delta
WEATHER: frosty and clear\
MOON: waning Gibbous
KILLS:  2 wood ducks, 1 blue bill, 7 buffleheads
FRIENDS: Quinn McClurg and Hayden Skipper


Due to lack of water, my usual places are DRY!  We had to go to a back up spot in order to find some water to float Magellan.  We set up on a mud flat at daylight, and it was very slow.  A couple of wood ducks cooperated and a lone blue bill committed.  After that, we picked up and moved to some cypress trees on a point and set out a long line "J hook" {author notes heavy sarcasm} with Magellan in the hook.  Several single buffleheads worked nicley and after an hour, we decided to call it a morning.

I wish conditions would have been better to get some "big duck" blood on Magellan, but it is just tough right now with the lack of water.

 

Magellan with a bunch of bufflehead - photo courtesy of Quinn McClurg

 

Funny how such a simple bird can show so many colors - photo courtesy of Quinn McClurg

What Quinn didn't say is that he took Magellan to no fewer than 4 different spots over a 2 day period in hopes of getting him on a good hunt.  Folks think I'm insane, but I'll take a bunch of buffleheads in the bag any day of the week!

MANY THANKS to Quinn and Hayden for allowing Magellan to spend some time with them.

Check back often as Magellan's next hunt is my only one with him (not to mention I killed my first Canvasback over him), and after that, he's off to hunt with some good ole boys in the timber.

-Justin