• Hunting

    The Off Button

    The pair had come back. When mallards return to a recently rejected decoy spread, they usually coast right in without circling, but these aren’t mallards. The birds circle again and pull off in almost exactly the same pattern they did when they initially vetoed my presentation. I have a rule that once a duck responds to a call, I need to continue calling or risk losing interest, so I let the déjà vu continue to play out. Two or three false approaches, and they finally break the mold and cut back towards the decoys rather than away.