Don Fenton from Truck Vault and Outdoor Life gun dog blogger Brian Lynn joined me for the hunt and we all met up at the Banded cabin east of Mount Vernon bright and squirrelly this morning.
The Banded guys set out around 12 dozen widgeon and mallard dekes in one of their private fields right across the street for the lodge. The birds had been hammering this field earlier in the week and our hopes were high they would be back.
Here's Seth brushing out the Final Approach layout blinds before we nestled in prior to shooting light.
Fenton is ready...check
Here's comes the sun...and the blue birds

the spread with our layout blinds close by.
Brian with the nice ringneck duck he took first thing in the morning. Disrespect no duck

Brian's dog Kona was nothing short of amazing. He called Kona "a little rusty"...I call him amazing. Lynn isn't Outdoor Life's gun dog blogger for nuthin...he knows how to train a dog

Travis and the boys took an old farm building and converted it into a nice hunting lodge right across the street from one of their fields. For a group of 4 to 6 guys it's perfect and if you're heading to Skagit County for the Tulip Festival it's good for that too. Nice and quiet...at least when it's not hunting season

Travis shows us around the Banded hunting lodge
This is an artsy-fartsy shot of the nice kitchen. There are mounts everywhere

Four nice beds upstairs and they are expanding to make room for more after hunting season is over.
For a total bluebird day we actually got some good shooting in, downing around 15 ducks or so. Well...they shot good...I missed quite a bit

