The truck thermometer said 41 when we backed the trailer down the ramp, which felt almost warm for opening morning. That never lasts. By the time the boat was loaded and the motor was idling out through the first stretch of open water, the cold had found every gap in the waders.
We ran the same line we always run — down the ditch, past the dead cypress, then cut the motor early and pole the last hundred yards so we don't push birds off the roost before shooting light. It's a few extra minutes of work, but it's the difference between hunting over ducks and hunting near where ducks used to be.
Decoys went out fast: a loose group upwind, a clear landing lane straight downwind of the blind, and a few singles kicked off to the side to break up the pattern. No magic to it. Just enough imperfection that it reads as real from altitude.
The first group came in high and left, the kind of look that tells you they've seen this trick before. We let them go without a call. Second group dropped altitude on their own, cupped up on the far side of the timber, and by the time they leveled out over the decoys there wasn't much deciding left to do.
Two birds down clean, one long crosser that took a second shot to finish. Dog work was ugly in the flooded grass but nobody was grading it. That's the whole appeal of a morning like this — it doesn't need to be pretty to be good.