Slow Starts, Good Hunts, New Guns, and the Season That Finally Feels Like It’s Waking Up
There’s a moment every California waterfowl mid season when the whole rhythm of the year shifts. It isn’t a specific day on the calendar. It isn’t tied to a storm or a wind forecast or some magic moon phase. It’s quieter than that. You’re walking into a blind in the dark or scouting with a buddy on a random Sunday and something inside you says, “Alright. Now the season is starting.”
We’re not fully there yet, but we’re close. Close enough to taste it in the cold air and hear it in the way the marsh settles before sunrise. Close enough that the last two months feel like the slow burn that leads into the good stuff.
The first half of the season was strange. Birds came late. Water came late. More fog than anyone wanted. More “maybe next weekend” hunts than I’d like to admit. But hidden inside all that were mornings that still mattered, hunts that delivered, and gear that surprised me in the best ways.
This is the full mid-season rundown. The birds, the weather, the hunts, the guns, the blinds, the people, the wins, the misses, and why it finally feels like things are about to crack open.
Late Rice, Late Water, and a Quiet First Month
If you hunt rice in California, you know that timing is the whole game. The fields need to be cut, the ground needs to dry just enough, and then the water needs to flow before birds start building real patterns. This year everything was late. Harvest dragged on longer than it should have. Water didn’t hit our club blinds until well after they usually would. By the time birds started pushing through, our fields still looked like a construction site.
We did our part.
– Brushed blinds better than any year I can remember.
– Added a few new blind locations, including a couple much closer to home.
– Dialed in the decoy setups.
– Cleaned shooting lanes.
– Spent the early mornings checking water depth and watching for the first pintail to swing overhead.
But everything felt behind. Two full months behind.
And with work, kids, and the usual holiday chaos, I only managed to hunt our club blinds three times before mid-season. Three. That alone tells you what kind of start we had.
The Opener I Didn’t Hunt
Saying you skipped the opener feels like admitting you forgot your kid at school. It just feels wrong. But I pulled a #77 at Colusa in the lotto and stared at the number long enough to know it wasn’t worth driving back up. That number might as well say “thanks for showing up but you’re not hunting here today.”
So I did something I have literally never done. I sat out the opener.
Woke up that morning and the world felt too quiet. No straps being clipped. No thermos clanking in the truck cupholder. No headlamp. No tuning the duck call while driving through the dark.
It felt like a gut punch. And then I checked the reports. Slow. Barely any birds working. Everything lined up with what the season had already been telling us.
Did it make skipping it easier? Maybe. But opener is opener, and it still stings.
A Fog-Soaked Upland Morning at Hastings Island
A quick upland run usually helps shake off that early-season frustration. Frank and I hit Hastings Island on a morning that looked like it had been swallowed whole by a cloud. Fog so thick you could barely see your dog, let alone a rooster flushing thirty yards out.
We waited almost an hour for visibility to clear. Drank tea. Stretched legs. Bullshitted with the guys in the parking lot. Watched roosters crow somewhere out in the gray soup but couldn’t see a thing.
Once the fog lifted just enough, we walked a section of the club. There’s something about the way pheasant hunts feel under heavy fog. The air stays cool. Sound travels differently. Every shadow looks like a rooster about to bust out.
We scratched out one bird before both of us had to peel off for the day. Short hunt. Still worth it. Any morning with a rooster in hand counts.
MOA Waterfowl: Turning a First-Timer Into a Believer
One of the best mornings of the season came from a guided hunt with MOA Waterfowl Outfitters. Tess, a longtime friend, had flown in for Thanksgiving and wanted to get her husband, Colter, on his first duck hunt. The real thing. A professional guide. A clean pit. A real spread. Birds working. The whole deal.
So I pointed them to Marv and Laura because I knew they’d knock it out of the park.
Marv met us in the dark and loaded us into an ATV with a trailer hitched on. We rolled out through the rice checks and stopped near a line of three well-built two-man pits. Good visibility. Comfy seats. Enough space to move without bumping elbows. A setup that makes new hunters feel confident and veterans feel spoiled.
Birds weren’t flying crazy, but we had steady action. Enough that the adrenaline stayed up, but spaced so a first-timer wasn’t overwhelmed. Watching someone shoot their first ducks never gets old. The excitement hits different when it’s happening next to you in real time.
By the end of the morning, we had a happy crew and a brand-new addict in the making. They even booked another hunt with Marv the next day.
This hunt was also my first real test drive of the Browning Maxus 2 Wicked Wing. That gun is shockingly soft shooting. It cycles like it’s floating. I kept checking the action because I genuinely wasn’t sure shots were firing. It is that smooth. Browning knew exactly what they were doing with that recoil system.
Colusa Free Roam with the Boys: New Ground, Familiar Grind
This was a good one. A different kind of good.
We rolled into Colusa with a #17 reservation. Not terrible. Not elite. Enough to get you in, but not enough to stroll around acting like you own the place. I had the boys with me: Trev, Matt, and Vinny. They’re all Grizzly Island veterans. They’ve hunted a pile of refuges across the valley. They know pressure. They know birds. But somehow none of them had ever hunted Colusa. This was their first time seeing that marsh at first light.
We headed into free roam east and found a dry island tucked into the patch. Not big. Not fancy. Just a clean piece of ground with enough cover to build a hide and enough elevation to see birds before they were on top of us.
Setup felt smooth. Efficient. Exactly the way free roam should feel when everyone knows their job.
We built the spread entirely with Rig ’Em Right gear since we’re running their lineup this season. It looked damn good. Blackout Series mallards for that deeper contrast. Standard mallards for bulk. Wigeon decoys with sharp color lines. Teal to add life. A couple sprig for confidence. The spread looked like a real loafing hole by the time shooting light hit.
I hauled all of my personal gear in using the Rig ’Em Right Stump Jumper backpack while the decoys were riding in the Rig ’Em Right floating decoy bag, which rode perfectly in the Jet Sled. It made the whole entry calm and organized instead of the usual free roam chaos where somebody always loses a glove or steps straight into a ditch.
Gray skies lingered longer than any of us liked, but we worked a few birds and finished with a one bird average, which lined up with what everyone else was reporting across the refuge.
The birds didn’t make the morning. The company did. Watching those guys get their first taste of Colusa, with all its quirks and pressure and style, felt like sharing an old secret.
Cold North Wind and a Solid Hunt with CICC Outdoor Adventures
We hunted with CICC Outdoor Adventures in the Arbuckle area, and for the first time all season, we got a real north wind. Not the warm, dry north wind. The cold one. The one that bites your cheeks before sunrise and makes your fingertips go numb when you’re trying to load shells.
It felt like real duck weather. Finally.
The skies stayed low and gray, but birds moved just enough to give us hope. The very first bird over the spread was a storm wigeon so perfect that DJ didn’t even think about it. Straight to the taxidermist. That’s how you know you’re having a day.
After that, we pieced together a clean mixed bag of ducks and geese. Nothing lights-out. But steady. Honest. Earned.
Our guide, Jayson, was the kind of guide who makes you want to hunt with him again. Confident, calm, and always three steps ahead of the birds. The blind was spacious, comfortable, and well thought out. And the ride in with a side-by-side on tracks was a luxury I’m not sure I can go back from. Straight to the blind. No mud slog. No guessing. No broken ankles.
Door-to-door duck hunting. Beautiful.
Sac River Scouting and My First Real Time with the Browning Citori 825
Frank and I spent part of last weekend scouting a few pieces of ground along the Sacramento River. Cold, crisp air. Big sky.
I brought the Browning Citori 825 for its first field test, and this gun is something else. Light. Balanced. Smooth in a way that almost feels unfair. It mounts naturally and follows birds like it’s reading your mind. There’s a certain elegance to a shotgun that disappears when you shoot it. This one does that. You forget you’re holding it.
I’m excited to keep running it for upland the rest of the year.
Lessons from the First Half
A few takeaways worth noting.
• Fog will ruin the best-laid plans.
• Free roam rewards decisiveness.
• Good blinds are worth the effort.
• You can’t force early birds.
• Good company makes bad hunts better.
• Great gear makes everything smoother.
• Mid season is always where the story turns.
Looking Forward: The Season Is Finally Stretching Its Wings
The first half felt like a long warm-up. Birds late. Weather stubborn. Refuges slow. Clubs quiet. But things are shifting. New birds are already showing. Temps are dropping. Water levels are stabilizing. Storm patterns are stacking up. And the north wind is finally starting to carry that sharp edge that tells you the best hunts of the season are still ahead.
We’ve got more Browning reviews lined up. More Rig ’Em Right gear to run through real hunts. More days planned with good buddies. More chances to make the kind of mornings that stay with you long after January closes.
Mid season isn’t the halfway point. It’s the moment everything wakes up.
See you out there.
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