Man, this thread got me going this morning. I don't think there is anyway I can pick just one so here are a couple of samplers while I think about it.
1. One January after a couple of fronts, the water was low in the marsh and the teal had moved in mid week as thick as I have ever seen. So for that Saturday, I invited 9 friends (10 including me) to come down to the camp Friday night. Our game plan was we hunt in shifts. I took the 1st group out and we were back at the camp with our limit within the hour. Loaded the next 3 in the boat and headed back out, repeat 1 more time. The 3rd group was done, picked up and back at the camp eating breakfast thanks to the 1st group by 9:00. 10 man limit, 3 boat trips, and still coming in. It would take me longer to pick them up than it would for the blind to kill their limit. Awesome time and one that we still talk about.
2. One season we had a massive (bigger than what you are thinking right now) roost of ducks about 1/2 mile from my blind. They stayed there all year and we intentionally left them alone. I have never seen birds like that season. I would take people and they would just freak. It was common to have so many birds circling our decoys that the 'circle' was literally a circle. I had to tell many friends to quit looking around and just watch the front hole in the decoys - that is where they were going to break. There was too much going on to focus on anything else. It wasn't everyday, but for that whole season it was probably 75% of the days that year. I have hunted a lot for a long time and I have never seen anything like that year.
3. Had a great yellow lab and every once in a while we would go back out after our hunt to help somebody else look for a lost bird or two. Lots of great stories, but 1 day as my dog seemed to pick up a smell the hunter kept telling me she was in the wrong spot because the duck fell over there. I just said OK, but she is on to something so let's just allow her to do what she does. She did her zig sagging and it kept coming up dead end. On it hot and dead end. After watching this a couple of times, I got out and figured I would go help. There was an otter trail through the marsh connecting 2 ponds and she would pick the smell up on this trail and then it seemingly just disappeared. Finally, she put 2 and 2 together and said if it keeps disappearing in this same spot every time then that duck must be right here. She started tearing at the mud in this trail and pulled that teal out of the ground. We had both walked over that spot more than once. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen honestly. That teal had buried itself in the soft mud.
4. We get to the blind (small island in a large lake/pond) before sun up 1 morning and my dog just jumped out of the boat and started swimming through the decoys. He was young and trying to replace his momma from the story above, but man he had a mind of his own. I tried to call him back, but he wouldn't come. What ever, you just better be back before it is time to leave. LOL. Sun comes up and we can see him on the bank edge on a big island 1/4 mile away. He is running back and forth in 1 area and it looks like he is working hard. Oh well, I have ducks to worry about. Next thing we know he is swimming back after about an hour. Then we notice he has something in his mouth. he gets back to our island and delivers to me a widgeon with a broken wing from a day earlier in the week. Now, I have no idea if that bird was hiding on our island blind and the chase started as soon as I parked the boat, or if he had a bionic nose and smelled something for a far, or the most likely scenario - he was being the hard head like usual and playing around and just ran across it. Either way, he thought he was a hero.
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