Duck Hunt Mystery Cache

The posted coordinates are in a Safety Zone. Don't hunt there. Solve the puzzle for a good hunting spot.

A point system for regulating the duck harvest was introduced in the 1970’s when I was learning hunting skills, initially on ducks, later small game, and finally deer, turkey, and geocaches. The duck daily bag limit for a hunter was reached when the point value of the last duck bagged caused the total for the day to reach or exceed 100 points. Hen mallards, black ducks, mottled ducks, wood ducks, and canvasbacks, were each assigned 90 points; drake mallards, hen pintails, and redheads were 20 points; and all other ducks were 10 points each. For our wildgame, I'm assigning other waterfowl game species lower point values because they are not ducks. This includes mergansers, 5 points; canada geese and snow geese, 4 points; brant, 3 points; railbirds, 2 points; and grebes, coots, snipe, and gallinules, 1 point each.

As part of hunting skills, one had to be able to identify both drakes and hens of all waterfowl species in a variety of conditions to stay within the daily bag limit. The order of bagged ducks was important because it established how many ducks could be legally harvested in a day, e.g., nine green-winged teal could be taken along with a wood duck if the wood duck was taken last; if the wood duck was taken first, a hunter could only take one more duck of any kind that day, so identification was crucial.

Duck hunting takes place in a variety of environments, such as the ocean, where sea ducks reside, saltwater bays and marshes, and upland freshwater lakes and rivers. So other legal game, such as woodcock, pheasant, ruffed grouse, quail, and dove could be encountered that do not contribute to the point system; instead, are covered by separate daily bag limits.

My duck hunts were normally with my dad, Howard, my two brothers, Jim and Bob, my cousin Eddie (I was also blessed with an Uncle Al, but he didn’t hunt), and my best friend Rick. Believe it or not, the best hunting places are where ducks like to be. A good hunting spot is reflected in hunters’ success at the chosen blind. One day we harvested these birds. Can you find our hunting spot? Make sure we didn’t go over our limit!

Legal hunting hours are sunrise to sunset. Gates are locked at sundown.

Congratulations to TheMoiety team for being the first to find! I loved the way the Mrs. carved up the harvest on a spreadsheet and served it to the Mr. for dinner. I hope they both had their hunting license AND duck stamp in possession while on the hunt.