Early Season Teal

This past weekend was the early teal and woodduck opener for Tennessee. I had done a lot of scouting and found a pretty decent population of birds in the back of a large cove with a creek coming in. But when I was scouting with my 14’ johnboat, I found that about half way back into the cove, it was less than 2 ft of water and thick grass to the surface. This grass is what was attracting the ducks, but it was also a burden on my outboard and eventually served as a barrier to keep me from getting back to where I needed to be.

So after a little planning with my buddy, we decided to mother ship our kayaks as far as we could with our duck boats, tie them to the shore and then load up the kayaks with our gear, and paddle the rest of the way. So at 4:00 AM when I arrived at the boat ramp, I may have gotten some weird looks from some other hunters, but heck, if it works, it works! The Jackson Kraken 13.5 flawlessly glided over the thick milfoil and guided me to my destination. I watched several outboards try to unsuccessfully get to this area. Once I found my spot, I ditched the kayak under a willow tree and hunted from a sandbar. The Kraken definitely aided me in success and helped me get to an area where others couldn’t. I’ll definitely be utilizing it again in my future hunting adventures!