Last weekend was Michigan’s early youth only hunt,
Let’s the kids actually take ducks before every idiot with a decoy and a gun educates the birds.
Took my son out, he had been asking for a couple months and I decided he was ready
It’s kind of a big deal/rite of passage in my family, the waterfowl industry kept a roof over our heads and food in our bellies when I was a kid.
I can remember being 5 years old standing in the shop with my dad and uncle at the saw, swapping them cedar body blanks for rough cut bodies, and pulling and stacking the scrap cuts next to the wood stove..
I think this picture says a lot
They swam in right after sunup in a group of around ten, he waited until these two separated from the group and crossed each other. One shot, 2 ducks.
Granted his duck gun is a 20gauge Mossberg bantam with a optima mrds that’s been zeroed to point of maximum pattern density for heavi metal #4s @35yards, but being able to wait for the right shot, knowing when it’s presented itself, and not spooking the birds doing it is pretty damn impressive from the worlds loudest 11 year old.
I’m happy, that’s 5 generations of men in my family now that have hunted and harvested birds on the same water.