Duck Hunting on Green Bay

My whole life, I have never hunted ducks on big water.  Every place I've ever hunted these past 40 years has been a small lake, slough, or bayou.  Never big expanses of water.  But that all ended with a buddy's invitation to hunt his duck camp on Green Bay.

The camp has 700 acres of prime waterfowl habitat that resides on the western shore of the big bay.  With a river running through the property, as well as multiple creeks, wetlands, and potholes we had our choice of hunting spots, but for the morning, we chose to hunt the big bay.

While the weather didn't cooperate - it was 60 degrees - but there were birds on the Bay, and with any luck we'd be able to lure some in.

The day started with a beautiful sunrise:

The Bay is very shallow - note the sand bar jutting out into the water just to the right of the decoys.

We ended up with six birds - a mix of diver and puddle ducks.  Here's the Yellow Dog with a beautiful drake Goldeneye:

Green Bay is unique in how shallow it is.  Because it is show shallow, and Lake Michigan such a large basin, when the wind is blowing hard from the south it can blow the water out of the Bay.  That is exactly what happened to us this morning.  The decoys in front of us were placed in about three feet of water.  By the time we picked up, they were no longer floating.  Compare the picture below with the first one to get a better understanding:

It was a great morning.  The dog was outstanding, our calling and shooting acceptable, and the resulting bag respectable.  Not a bad way to start my first ever big water duck hunt.