This past Saturday morning my friend Chad Channell (aka “Slowpoke”) and I set out to check some duck boxes we’ve been working on. He met me at the house and we loaded up the Team Carolina Power Sports Polaris Ranger and a few supplies and headed out. If you’ve read any of my blogs thus far then you our first stop was breakfast! A lot of my friends and I love to eat at Buford’s Little General on Saturday mornings. Not only is the food great, but there's always some good discussions going on amongst the crowd.

After that wonderful breakfast we headed out to our first stop. We unloaded the Ranger and loaded a few supplies and started out toward our first duck box. After a short ride we arrived at a duck box on one of my private ponds. We walked up to the box and easily opened the lid and checked for a hen duck or the presence of any eggs. The first box showed neither so we topped it off with more shavings and moved on to the look for more boxes on the next property. The next box also showed no hen or eggs. So we made some minor adjustments to the box and again topped this one off with some more fresh shavings. We were 0 for 2 at this point, but you can’t really predict or control nature.

We then took a short ride through a freshly cut field to another pond. As we approached the box a hen flew out of it. I was excited! Slowpoke saw it as well and said “What was that?” This is his first year helping with duck boxes so he’s still learning bits and pieces here and there. I told him that it was a hen wood duck and that she was laying eggs. We opened the side door and there was a mix of feathers, shavings, and eggs. I snapped a quick picture and closed the door and we walked away. We just wanted to know if eggs were present, but we didn’t want to disturb them or bother the hen duck. We had all the info we needed at this point and we moved on.

As we got off in the distance I explained to Slowpoke why it was important to check boxes during the laying season. We try to proactively check duck boxes to help ensure that the sport we love so much will be around next year and for future generations of hunters. As hunters we can help contribute to the success of the species and this is one of the few things we can do to help. One of the reasons we check the boxes is because if a Songbird goes in the box and lays an egg the duck will abandon her nest. As you can imagine this is not a good scenario so keeping a close eye on the box can pay off. If you keep boxes checked and catch that scenario in time you can clean the nest out and usually another duck will come and use box.

We checked around 25 boxes that Saturday and had only one hen with a clutch of eggs. We were not discouraged though as it is still early at this point in the year. They usually start laying eggs around mid-March.

After checking duck boxes we walked and rode some trails on our hunting land. While exploring we found a few nice shed antlers too. All in all it was a great day and I enjoyed my time outside. My Heybo fitted hat kept the sun from burning my bald head and my WinnTuck sunglass lanyard kept my Costas in place to keep the sun out of my eyes. It was another great day in the outdoors!