The small eight-acre, reed-lined pond couldn’t really be classified as remote since it’s situated only half a mile from a paved road, but it can’t be seen or even located unless a person gets way off the beaten path. It’s just one of perhaps 100 such obscure, hidden, overlooked and often ignored farm ponds, beaver bogs and forest bound backwaters that attract and harbor droves of ducks every fall.
Our trio of camo-clad hunters parked the pickup alongside a rutted field road and wrestled my 17-foot, 59-pound Old Town Kevlar canoe from the roof rack. While other Aroostook sportsmen concentrated on archery deer season, the second week of moose hunting and woodcock or grouse gunning, we hoped for a fast and furious duck hunt.
Along with a dozen or so floating duck decoys, a flapping-wing, remote control Mojo Mallard will really attract ducks and offer the realistic look of a live bird landing among the fake flock. It’s a little tricky setting up from an unstable canoe, as well as carrying through the woods, but the results are well worth the effort.
(Courtesy of Bill Graves)
After donning hip boots, we packed three cased shotguns, a dozen decoys and our blind bags full of shells, calls and other waterfowl gear into the boat among the paddles, life vests and anchor. Two of us manhandled the sleek, heavily gear-burdened canoe along a rough woods path through brush and between trees. The third team member carried our bulky, unique and somewhat fragile secret weapon. After 75 yards of zigging, zagging and stumbling around roots, rocks and blowdowns, we reached a head-high curtain of cattails at water edge.
All the hunting gear was off loaded except decoys, and while two of us shrugged into floatation vests, our secret waterfowling weapon was gently placed onto the canoe. Dragging our craft through the thick rushes into the water, we manned the paddles and began to set out our fake flock of mallards, black ducks and teal. Three separate groups were placed on weighted tethers along a 60-yard stretch of shoreline and the light breeze moved them along the surface like live birds.
At the midpoint of our decoy spread, an extendable six-foot metal pole was forced into the putty-like mud bottom, and a life-size drake mallard with feet down and wings spread was placed on top of the stand. Hovering about two feet above the water, the colorful duck really stood out — especially when I toggled a switch on a small remote control in my pocket and the wings began to spin. White on one side and black on the other, when in motion the Mojo mallard truly simulated a live landing duck.
Motion decoys used to consist of floating birds with a long string running to a blind on shore where a hunter could pull the jerk-line to move the attached decoy and make ripples to also move other decoys nearby. Then there was a floating duck with a battery-driven propeller and remote control that swam about like the old model ships. These were expensive and needed both hands to manipulate the controls from shore. Currently there are a dozen battery-controlled ducks and geese that provide realistic movement to any decoy set up and last all day, but the Mojo models seem to have proven most effective. A handful of states even passed regulations prohibiting their use because the fake-winged wonders proved too effective. I’m happy to say Maine is not one of those states.
Aroostook County abounds with small ponds and most of them serve as rest, relax and roost locations for large numbers of waterfowl. The trick is to locate a remote waterway and drag a canoe and duck hunting gear through the woods to take advantage of some great duck gunning.
(Courtesy of Bill Graves)
Once back onshore, the canoe was beached and hidden with reeds and brush and each of us took up shooting stations about 25 yards apart along the decoy spread. We hunkered among the cattails and bushes, scatterguns loaded, calls hanging from neck lanyards and scanned the sky for approaching ducks. We had two hours of legal hunting time left before dusk — the perfect period when birds return from feeding to rest on their nightly roost ponds.
Less than 15 minutes passed when a flight of eight ducks appeared on the horizon heading our way. Now the trick was to get them over the decoys and within range. I started the spinning wing decoy and the other two guys began blowing a greeting call. The birds winged over the far shoreline, button hooked around into the wind and set their wings. When the fireworks stopped, a black duck, hen mallard and two greenheads stayed behind, floating among the dekes.
Aroostook’s weather conditions since spring have been extremely frustrating. Area farmers, gardeners and outdoor enthusiasts have been and are still being affected. Heavy, consistent rain in June gave way to months of dry, warm weather and regional rivers and streams changed from torrents to trickles. There are plenty of spots on the Aroostook, Meduxnekeag, St. John and Prestile a person could wade across and never get their knees wet. This certainly dampens float trips as well as many jump shooting opportunities on favorite flowing waterways. Thank goodness for Aroostook’s polka dot pattern of lakes, ponds, and puddles.
Over the next hour, a few singles, some doubles and several small flocks succumbed to our “come-hither” calling and our spinning wing decoy helped seal the deal with its realistic motion. At sunset, our trio tallied a dozen ducks, mostly mallards, but one male wood duck and a green wing teal added color and variety. As we paddled out to pick up and repack decoys and our pole-sitting, fake-flying Mojo mallard, the most amazing event of the outing began.
As the stars and moon began to appear overhead in the evening gloom, so did every duck in Aroostook County, or so it seemed. Flock after flock of waterfowl, some groups of 50 birds or more, ascended en mass on our little waterhole. They tumbled in so close over our canoe we truly could have hit them with a paddle, their set wings ripping the air like a cloth tearing. Some landed within feet of the canoe and realized their mistake, noisily taking wing again to circle and land a few yards away.
Even as we hauled the canoe back uphill through the woods to the truck, we could hear the ducks continue to fly in, land and quack contentedly as they settled in for the night on their roost pond. Satisfying as our hunt was, and the success of our new motion decoy, the dusk onslaught of waterfowl will be the true memory of our trip. There are more ducks throughout The Crown of Maine this fall than I’ve seen in the last decade. Visit a waterway near you and make a few memories of your own.
