A bit of a terrible trip, but hopefully a great memory...

If you're like me, September 1st marks the beginning of the greatest time of the year! Bear baiting is in full swing, early season teal and goose hunting begins, upland bird hunting is just around the corner and everything else we enjoy is following close behind. Early season #tealhunting has always been on my radar, but until this year, I've never been able to participate. A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to plan an end of summer camping trip with my two oldest boys before school started. I landed on an early season #waterfowlhunting trip to the historic Munuscong Bay, in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I used to hunt this area as a kid, and for a while after graduating high school, but it's been quite a few years since I've been back.

Opening day was Sunday, September 1st. We loaded everything we thought we'd need for the trip on Saturday morning and got on the road by noon. It would be about a 4 hour road trip. Along the way we talked about how we wanted to set up our camp site and our location for the next morning's hunt, the weather, and everything we realized we forgot to bring. The weather forecast for early September hunting looked good. A little breeze, no rain, and warm but not hot. We planned to get close to the campground, do some scouting for a bit and then begin setting up camp before it got dark.

We arrived at the first location we wanted to scout right on time, about 4 hours after leaving home. We were all wearing shorts, sandals and t-shirts because it was hot, almost 85 degrees when we parked the truck. Before stepping out, we could see a small group of geese sitting in a nearby field. I told the boys not to slam the doors and be quiet while getting out. We started making our way through the overgrown fields in search of some ponds that I knew were there. About a hundred yards in, we knew we made a mistake. The thorns and picker bushes had already left their mark on our unprotected legs and feet. But this was no time for complaining, we had birds to find! We eventually found the first pond. As we approached, we could hear geese flying nearby. I told the boys to get down and hide, we'd be able to watch where they land. After laying in the tall grass for a few minutes, we realized we made another mistake, we hadn't put on any bug spray. The mosquitos ate us alive! We quickly checked a couple more ponds and got back to the truck. We did find #ducks and #geese, but we also left with itchy, scraped up legs and feet, as well as a lot less blood from the robin sized mosquitos.

We decided it was a good time to head to the campground and set up our camp for the night. It was decided that getting a fire going to try and keep some of those mosquitos away was the top priority. I had assumed we could find some firewood around the campground and didn't bring any from home. That proved to be a large task as well. We failed to realize we grabbed a dull hatchet and it had also recently rained, soaking all the potential firewood we found. My boys stayed consistent however, a fire was finally produced - I told myself they were learning valuable lessons, but I knew it was just failed planning on my part... After an hour or so of getting the fire going, the tent was up, bedding unloaded, #decoys were being organized, and we were ready to get some dinner going. Brats were on the menu, and we were hungry and looking forward to it! We flattened out some hot coals and set our fire grate up to start cooking. After a few minutes of cooking, some weird, white ooz began seeping out of the brats. This is not anything we had seen before while cooking brats at home. I told the boys it was just juices boiling out, but I wasn't exactly sure. When they were fully cooked, we grabbed some buns and dug in. The first bite confirmed my fears, they were disgusting. I believe we were the a victims of mislabeled meats at the local deli. The brats were filled with sauerkraut, nothing that any of us like. We made the best of it and ate what we could. It was a good thing we brought lots of dessert options.

After getting dinner cleaned up, we headed out to do some last minute scouting before dark. We saw lots of ducks flying around the marsh, very few geese and again, lots of mosquitos. We were excited about the number of ducks we'd seen. We were picturing hauling out limits of teal later the next morning. #munuscongbay is a popular waterfowl destination. I had never hunted early season in this area, but I assumed we'd need to get up early to make sure we got a good spot. We went to bed by 9:00 and had our alarm set for 3:50am. We were only about a 2 minute drive from where we'd park the truck and walk into the marsh. At about 11:00pm, the winds started to blow like we were in the middle of a hurricane. I was concerned our tent was going to be shredded. By midnight the thunder and lightning began, and then the heavy rain. It was like someone was dumping a constant bucket of water on our tent, a complete downpour. It didn't take long for the wind to blow the rain up under the rain fly, and multiple leaks and drips were occurring inside the tent. Between the noise of the thunder, the violently shaking tent, and the dripping on our heads, no one slept much. I was wide awake, so I turned the alarm off before it had a chance to ring. I laid there thinking about how many things had gone wrong so far... I figured I'd let my boys sleep a few extra minutes before I got them up.

At exactly 3:58am, I heard the first duck boat going down the river to claim a spot. I woke my boys up and told them we had to get moving. We packed up the soaked bedding, packed the tent, changed clothes, and loaded into the truck. We were the first truck to get to the parking area for the walk in access spot. We ate some quick breakfast and prepared for the walk. We used a #jetsled to haul our gear. It worked really well on the way out when the grass was wet, but not so well on the way back after the wind had dried the trail.

We're lucky we went when we did. The entire area began to light up with headlights and headlamps. You can see for a long distance in all directions from where we chose to set up, at least a couple miles in a few spots. We could see groups of hunters walking in, and hear others heading down the river in boats. We guessed we heard at least 8 boats head out to the main part of the bay, and we saw 6 separate groups walk in on foot. I set the decoys around 6:15. Legal shooting hours for geese was around 6:30, legal shooting for teal wasn't until shortly after 7:00. We were ready. The ducks were flying before we even had the decoys set. I was surprised at the duck numbers. You couldn't go more than a couple minutes without having ducks fly over us. The boys were anxiously awaiting the signal to shoot. It was only about two minutes after I declared it was legal shooting hours that 3 teal made their way through our spread. We ripped off 4 quick shots, but we didn't even cut a feather. We fired a few more shots over the next hour or so without hitting a duck. Both discouraging and promising all in the same.

It was close to 9:00 when I thought I heard someone talking pretty close to us. Within minutes I confirmed what I thought I heard. A tall guy in camo and a small retriever were walking down the trail towards us. They could clearly see we were there, but they decided they were coming anyway. I used this as a teaching moment for my boys. They were upset someone was crashing our hunt. While I shared the same feelings, I explained we were hunting state land, and everyone had just as much right as us to be there. I greeted the man with a polite hello and asked him how his hunt had been going. He explained he had killed a duck, but his dog wouldn't retrieve it. He was walking to a spot on the trail where he knew there were some rocks. He thought if he could throw some rocks near his kill, maybe his dog would swim out and retrieve the duck. He continued on his rock hunt and we sat tight in our cover, ready for the next duck to come in. About 20 minutes later, I heard him coming back. He was about 25 yards away when a single #bluewingteal worked our spread from left to right, right over the decoys. I was watching the man and his dog, not really paying attention to the water when I realized there was a shootable duck in range. I didn't get to say anything when my oldest son yelled, "TEAL, SHOOT!" He raised up, took one shot, and dropped that duck in his tracks. It was a proud dad moment for many reasons. He identified the duck, called the shot, and made a great shot on it. It was capped off by an extra eye witness who also verbally acknowledged the shot.

We had set up in an area that we thought would be good, but we should have done a better job during scouting. I thought the entire area was shallow, wadeable water. Of course where the duck came to rest was over my waders. The kind gentleman that was passing by offered to try and have his dog retrieve the duck. I figured that was better than me trying to ride in the jet sled or go swimming for it. After a few failed attempts, we finally threw a rock close enough to the duck that the dog swam to it and brought it back. In hindsight, the man and his dog were a good thing that day. Except now he was out of rocks and needed to hike back up the trail for more rocks, and then back through our set up once again. As he came back through, we thanked him again, and hunkered down to resume our hunt. We saw several more ducks that morning, but nothing close enough to shoot at. Overall I would guess we saw close to 100 teal. Some missed shots, some groups that we weren't quick enough to shoot at, and some that were far off in the distance.

An 8 hour round trip drive, wet firewood, scraped up and thorn filled legs, millions of mosquitos, a terrible dinner, a wet and windy night in the tent, no sleep, hard and physical labor to get to and from our spot, interruptions from another hunter, and lots of missed shots. All for one duck. I've been on a lot of duck hunts, but this may have been my most memorable. A lot of us hunt for many different reasons, but for me, this is what it's all about. Get out and make some memories this fall. Even when things don't go your way, make the most of it. This was my oldest sons first duck. I hope we'll both remember it forever.