1st Duck Hunting Trip to Fish Point of '08

My morning started at 2:15 a.m. Man, it's been a while since I've seen this time of the morning. My warm bed is sitting there, trying to persuade me back to it's comfort. But not this morning. This is the morning I have been waiting for all year. This is the morning I head to Fish Point, a managed state game area by the Saginaw Bay. I head downstairs where all of my hunting gear is ready and waiting for me. It was all organized and arranged the night before to help ease the excitement and give me something to do before it was time to sleep. 2:50 a.m., the car is packed and I'm on my way to meet my hunting partner for the day, Brent. Brent is an electrician that was contracted to work at my school. A couple of talks about hunting and I knew I had found a new hunting partner. 3:30 a.m. and I am in the Meijer parking lot switching all the gear from my car to his. He is as excited as I am. Inside the truck, Lilly, Brent's golden lab, sits waiting. This is going to be her first trip out. 5:00 a.m. and we are in Unionville, where Fish Point is located. We drive around a bit to see if we can hear any ducks or geese that maybe found a nesting spot for the night outside of the refuge. Nothing. So we head over to the headquarters and register. We are party #31. After we get registered, we head to the maps and the number charts to try to make a more educated decision about where we want to hunt. The number charts are put up every Saturday morning and they tell you how many ducks and geese have been taken in each spot up to the current date. We made our list of the top 20 and waited. It was hot in there. It was the first open weekend at Fish Point, and the crowd that gathered inside affirmed that. 5:30 hit and they started to read off the rules and regulations for the areas, then they started to call party numbers. Fingers crossed. It seemed like they were reading forever. Well, we're not in the first 10. Or 20. Or 30. Man, this is getting bad. We were picked 65th. Well, do we want to see what we can get or try one of the open marshes? Most everything is gone, but we decide to go with an area of newly flooded corn in an area that hasn't been hunted that hard. 5:55, we are in our spot and it's looking nice. About 16 inches of water atop a corn patch about 120 yards long by about 25 yards wide. We start setup immediately because we only have about 20 minutes until first shot. We throw the decoys out in a sideways "J" pattern with our mojo in the middle front and the geese on point. My new Heron decoy is at point and slightly off to the side. Hopefully, he works out the way I had planned. We turn the mojo on and check the time. It's two minutes after first shot! Load up and sit back. I position myself on my swamp seat and wait. I can hear the other hunters around trying their best to swat whatever is flying by out of the air. With our eye's fixed on the horizon, we wait. I look down to grab my water bottle and take a sip. As I look back up, two mallards right overhead, now flying out of range. Damn! Can't drop my guard for a second. Okay, here we go. Eyes fixed. A couple of minutes go by and I hear Brent yell, "dang it!". A small flight of three right over his side. Okay, no more playing. We discuss what went wrong in the last five minutes and re-affirm what our sentry duties entailed. I scan the eastern horizon and listen for any sounds. All of the sudden, Brent yells out "Crap! Out front!!". I spin around and there are about 15 teals landing in our spread, maybe 10 ft. in front of me. Taken by surprise, I pull up and fire. Damn! Missed! So I pop off a second one. Damn! Okay, I'm just excited. Calm down. Take a breath. Focus. I squeeze the trigger and I see one drop. Alright! First one of the season! At the same time I hear Brent take two shots and he drops them both. Lilly bounds out with Brent, but has no idea what to do with the downed ducks. After some coaxing, she got the idea. So, back into the corn and wait. A bit later, a single flier came over top, but after two shots, she was still flying. A bit later, three mallards came over top. A couple of seconds later, the duck count was one greenwing teal hen, two greenwing teals, a mallard, and two mallard hens. For a spot that was taken out of the scraps left over from the morning, we're doing pretty good. As the morning grew longer, we heard the occasional shot here and there, but the morning flight was pretty much over. It was 11:00 a.m. so we packed up and registered our ducks at the station and looked at what was left from the afternoon draw. There wasn't hardly anything left. So we decided to go to a marsh that Brent knew of. So, after a hearty all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at the lamplighter cafe, we did a little exploring around the refuge. Then it was off to Brent's spot. All cattails with an opening on the east side and a trench going around the perimeter. We get about half way out there and Brent says that it's getting too hard to row so we should jump out and drag the boat. Well, after a couple hundred yards of walking through knee deep muck, I was starting to wonder about Brent's spot. But, we were already on our way so no turning back now. We finally got to our spot and I could not wait to get the decoys out so I could rest on my swamp seat. Just after getting settled in, Brent decided he was going to walk over to the cattails and see if he could jump shoot some birds. And if he missed, maybe they would fly over me. Well, an hour an a half passed and no word from Brent. So I try to call him. No answer. A couple of minutes later, I call again. No answer. After four or five times of calling with no answer, I was starting to get worried. The trench that went around the perimeter was over eight feet deep. So, I started to call out for him. No answer. Just as I started to make the call to get the police involved, I heard splashing. Here came Lilly. And shortly behind her was Brent shaking his head and a big smile on his face. I ask, "well, any luck?". And he replies "Yeah, I killed my phone". He then proceeds to tell me how he tried to cross the trench in a shallow spot. He got about half way across before he realized that he couldn't make it. And at some point in this crossing, the water was high enough to spill into his pocket where his new cell phone was (two weeks earlier, he had lost his cell phone while out deer hunting, so this was the replacement phone). So, we sat for another hour or so, and not a single sign of birds. Sunset was upon us and nothing. Then, about 10 minutes before last shot, a single duck came flying by. It was a woody and he was on a mission. He was not looking at our spread and he was making a fast break for the refuge. It was a long poke, but at about 40 yards, I drooped him like a rock. We waited until shooting light was over to retrieve him. On the way back, I opted to stay in the boat and push with the oars. That was a tiring trek for this husky hunter. When we got back to the makeshift launch, we chatted with another hunter that had camped out there most of the week and done quite a bit of duck hunting and had been out that day hunting deer. As we drove home, we were already starting to plan the next outing. The sport of waterfowling is an addicting one. It is the closest I will ever come to knowing what a drug addict must feel like. Always thinking about the next time. Always setting up the fix. Now my mind is set to the next waterfowl outing. And it can't come soon enough.

The three I brought home from Fish Point

Duck Hunting Fish Point

One of my favorite activities is waterfowl hunting. It's a little more social than other forms of hunting and when the action starts to pick up, there is nothing like it. There have been times while I'm sitting in a deer blind, it's below freezing, I've been in the same sitting position for four hours and I think to myself "it would be really nice to be home right now". I stick it out because that's a part of hunting. But I can honestly say that I have never felt that for even a second while waterfowl hunting. Even last year while I was up at Fish Point by the Saginaw Bay. By 8a.m., I could no longer feel my feet. By 10a.m., I was numb from the knees down. But it was worth every second, even though I didn't take a single shot the entire day. But back to the point of my story.

Fish Point contains more than 3,000 acres of flat farm fields, diked floodings, and coastal wetlands and prairies. Biologists manage the water levels and vegetation for the benefit of waterfowl and other animals that rely on wetland habitats for survival. And with the tremendous variety and abundance of waterfowl found here, the Fish Point area has been called the “Chesapeake of the Midwest”. While there is plenty of excellent hunting in this area, part of the state game area is a wildlife refuge and is off-limits to the public year-round. Unless, that is, if you volunteer for the Fish Point volunteer work weekend. Those that participate in this maintenance and upkeep event get a tour through the sanctuary, something most everyone else in the general public will never see. They have an observation tower and wildlife viewing trail to enjoy the wildlife when you are not hunting. There are also a few private lodges for those that would like a more guided experience. The lodges offer the basic from just a blind to hunt out of to fully guided hunts which include your decoys set, a dog and even lunch brought out to you in the blind.

Now, if you want to hunt the state game area, you have to be there bright and early. The huntable property is divided up into hunting zones. There are areas of corn, flooded corn, field, and little ponds and marshes. A few of these sites have blinds set up, but for the most part you are on your own. But, to get any of these, you must enter the lotto. When you first arrive, you are assigned the number in the order you came in, i.e. if you are the first person to walk into the building that morning, your number would be 1. If you are the second person, you would be number 2, and so on. Then, at 5:30a.m. (don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure that's that time) they pick a sheet of numbers randomly from a stack of about 15 sheets. They then read the pre-printed list of numbers, and you hope for the best. When they call your number you pick what area you want and that spot is marked off. The better spots (the one's with the blinds) are reserved for parties of 2 or more. If you are a single hunter and want one of the areas reserved for 2 or more, you can pass when your number is called until everyone else has picked and, if one is left over, you can take it. But, if there is more than 10 parties, there's a pretty good chance that those spots wont last long. Once you have picked your spot, you make your way out and you are good to go! There are two hunts. One in the morning from opening shot until 11a.m. and then another that starts at 1p.m. (once again, don't quote me, but I think that is the time) until last shot. You have to enter a lotto for the afternoon hunt just like the morning hunt, but there is usually not as many people at the second hunt.

Once you are done with your morning hunt, you have a few hours to kill. The local towns of Unionville and Sebewaing have some excellent diners and shops. Don's Sport Shop‎ is a great place to check out. It's a little "mom and pops" sporting goods store with some very interesting items and more information about the local hunting and fishing then you could learn in a lifetime.
Now, of the places there that I have hunted, my favorites would be over the potholes and the dry field. The dry corn field, also called the "scatter zone", is not a popular place to set up, but I have had some good luck there on the windy days. In the beginning of the season, the birds there are pretty uneducated. But once the season hits full swing, they learn pretty quick. It's amazing to watch these birds come off the bay and the second they cross the shore line, they jump right up above 350 yards and higher. They keep their height until the get over the refuge and then they perform a maneuver that still makes my jaw drop. They go into what is almost like a death spiral and drop strait down into their haven. It's just amazing to watch that many birds flying at once.

So, if you want to try waterfowling in one of Michigan's premiere hunting locations, give Fish Point a try. It will be well worth the trip.

Just a glimpse of some of what you will see up at Fish Point. This picture was taken right at last shot

First two mallards I took from Fish Point Last year.

Here is a link to Fish Point's page on the Michigan DNR's website