Thanks Bob - best of luck and safe travels as you chase birds all over creation.

If any of you have the chance to meet and chat with Bob, take it - you'll be better off because of it. He may look ornery , but it couldn't be further from the truth.

 

Good luck Bob

 

Only a pair for me.
Should have had a triple but lifted head a little on second bird and only pulled feathers, used third shell to put him down for sure.
Too wet for me and headed to truck at 10:50am.
While driving back to pick up a flock of 8 comes in and lands in decoys.
Figures….

 

My blind mate nailed a pair of geese at about 8 and I shot my only duck about 9. WAY too wet for me, We quite at 9:15. My Frogg Togg raincoat did NOT work and will be in the trash can today. When I got home, the ONLY clothing article that wasn't wet were my socks. All my clothes were wet down to just above the knees. My new SITKA waders did NOT leak. The rain came through the FT coat and soaked my clothing underneath the waders. We did not see a lot of birds moving on the club. And the is the very first time I ever hunted on opening day and did NOT hear a single gun go off until 10 minutes AFTER legal shooting time. I'll have GOOD rain gear tomorrow and hope for a better bag count. We'll stay a little longer tomorrow than we did today.

 

My alarm went off this morning, I could hear the rain dumping outside, and I just went back to sleep. I never seem to do well on hunts while it’s raining, so I’ll get out another day soon.

 

My normal opening day spot at Farmington was a bust. I fired one shot at 7:30 and got the only bird of the morning for my group. Cinny teal. My brother took one shot and my sister didn't even shoulder her gun. Worst opener I've had. Very little moving where we were and not as many people to bump the birds around. My phone was put away but I'm guessing first shot I heard over the rain on my hood was 5+ minutes after official time.
Bring on the afternoon cold fronts!

 

I think it was closer to 10 minutes after hours. Pretty **** dark this morning

 

Bring on the afternoon cold fronts!

Amen!

My alarm went off this morning, I could hear the rain dumping outside, and I just went back to sleep.

I should have done the same.

 

It was really dark this morning for me too. The lightning was pretty cool though. One shot right at shooting hours then it was about 15 minutes until any other shooting ocurred. It was slow, but I sqeeked out a limit. 2 hen mallards, 3 hen green wing teal, and 2 hen it was super raining, but i finished around 9 am.

 

I was supposed to leave go elk hunting Friday afternoon, but equipment issues messed that up until Sunday. I considered heading out for the opener, but much like Gander, heard the rain pounding and decided I didn’t want to deal with the wet today. The older I get, the more I am NOT inclined to sit and get drenched waiting for birds to show. Sure, there are some really good, wet weather days, but there are ALOT MORE dry weather “nice” days. I have 102 more days, so no hurry here.

An aside, I’d planned to hunt a local spot for spikes this afternoon, but I’m even less inclined to big game hunt in the rain. It has rained non stop here in Millcreek all day!!

 

It was terrible at Public Shooting Grounds. I think I fired my gun 5 times. I stayed longer than I should have and left after I was soaked. Even the wind and the rain didn't cause much movement. It didn't seem like anyone was getting into a lot of action.

I chatted with the DWR guys doing the bag checks and they told me almost everyone was bringing in 0, 1, or 2. They had checked one limit all morning.

I headed over to Salt Creek and talked to the bag check guy there. He hadn't checked a limit all morning, and said no one was even close to one. Lots of zeros, some ones and twos for the most part.

I wasn't expecting an epic shoot by any means, but I was pretty surprised at how poor the action was considering how good the weather was.

The lightning scared my dad away for the morning and almost did the same for me. Maybe a lot of others, too. Crowds were probably as small as I've ever seen them on opening day. I swung past FB on the way home just to check it out. The crowd still there at 1:00 was no different than a typical Saturday mid season. Maybe 20-30 trucks at Turpin and 20 everywhere else.

 

I almost stayed in with all the lightning. We had a great day. Went to Farmington and the first 30min were slow but I picked up. I ended up with a mallard, pintail, gadwall and four teal by 10.

There were about a quarter of the number of people that usually come out for the opener. I'm guessing a lot of the overnight boats gave up and came back in during the night. Several came back in when the first wave of the storm came through at first "light". I say that because it sure was dark at shooting time.

In all, I think there fewer birds, few hunters and just enough birdy weather to make the day a lot of fun. I had two rain jackets on and still got soaked. I haven't seen a rain like that in Utah. It just kept coming all day.


And it's a bad opener when the biologists have given up checking birds. Those guys were posted up in the trucks with trucks and boats leaving. Nobody out of a vehicle checking birds. I've never seen that on an opener.