This picture was taken October 22, 2006, which was the second day of the Western Zone season. High water made my usual opening weekend spot unsafe and we were forced to try a new spot. Low and behold we found a gold mine. Unfortunetly it is on state land and it was also the pheasant season opener. As such about a billion people heard us wacking away at the ducks and quite a bit of attention was drawn to the area. On this day we got into mallards, woodies, blacks, and even a widgeon. We had some greenwings slip past us without getting a shot and I got to work two drake pintails who made several high passes before they figured out that there were safer waters elsewhere. Of course I dropped half of my shells into the water so I was out of ammo when the widgeon showed up. My lifetime total of widgeon stands at a paltry 1 so I was pretty bummed! All of the reports in the DU magazine and online indicate that black duck numbers were similiar to in years past however we encounted many, many more than we are used to. On the way out Max pointed the grouse and my buddy knocked it down.