Last year I acquired a credit for the Happy Jack Lodge in Northern Arizona – a one-night stay that had a year to be used. It expired the first week of November 2020, and I needed to use it.
I spoke with my Dad and we decided to try to jump some tanks on the Mogollon Rim. We would also fill our coolers with squirrels and camera cards with other wildlife that we might see. The trip itself was during the weekday so that we didn’t have to deal with crowds and other hunters.
Our game plan was to go up reasonably early, hit as many tanks as possible, and go back to the lodge once the sun went down. We would then wake up early, pack up our gear, hit more tanks, and head home.
Day I
We made the roughly 3-hour drive north from Phoenix. As we did so, we couldn’t help but notice all the dry dirt tanks we saw – it has been one of the driest years on record, and THE hottest year ever on record. As I write this, temperatures are still dipping into the 90s, and it’s mid-November here in Phoenix. We knew that there was a good possibility that we’d find no water, besides the fact that it was early in the season. In case you’re new to duck hunting, especially in AZ, the later in the season, the better. You’ll not only run into more ducks but also drakes with full breeding plumage.
We approached our first tank, and we could see water, a good first sign. We snuck up the berm…sure enough, there was a ton of water but no ducks.
We sat at this tank for a few minutes, overlooking it from the truck. A large group of turkeys came from the hillside as we sat around. The turkeys were hesitant, but they drank from the tank for a good amount of time, and, from what we could see, they were only hens and young birds.
We started our way to the next tank. It, once again, had a good amount of water, but there were no ducks.
What I have failed to mention up to this point is how horrible the roads were. It took us an absurd amount of time to go from tank to tank. Tanks that were 1.5 miles from each other took 30 minutes to get to. The roads were washed out, littered with large, sharp rocks, and an occasional run of washboard. For the entirety of the day, we dealt with this. At one point, we couldn’t get to a tank that was about ½ a mile away because the road was so bad. It wasn’t even a Jeep road, it was like a…ATV road. It was awful.
I ended up getting out and hiked to this tank – once again, a good amount of water, but no ducks.
At this point, I was pretty positive about what was going on; there was water but just no ducks. There hasn’t been weather anywhere in the pacific flyway to push the birds south, so they’re just staying in more northern states. However, we pushed on.
We continued on. We checked Lake Mary and it had a few ducks. I was able to ID some mergansers but otherwise, the ducks were too far to ID. Who knows, they could have been coots for all I know.
We then decided to go check out Ashurst lake. You are not allowed to hunt at Ashurst lake, but neither of us had ever been and we had heard that there were a lot of ducks. This would be a good chance to teach my dad some duck ID tactics if there were ducks.
Boy, were there ducks.
There were hundreds, if not thousands, of ducks in this lake. Yes, there were a good number of coots, but that number estimate doesn’t include coots. There were tons of ducks of all varieties, including mallards, redheads, canvasbacks, ruddy, hooded mergansers, gadwalls, shovelers, and wigeons. Not to mention that there was also a pelican (which was absolutely massive).
We continued on into the day as the sun climbed from it’s peaking position. The night began to fall, and our day of hunting light had come to an end. We ended up hitting about 10 tanks, which took us the entirety of the day. The roads were just so bad that it took us forever to hit even a single tank.
We conversed that evening and came to the conclusion that there probably weren’t any ducks on any tanks and if there were, they would be very difficult to find/get to. So, we made the decision to do some exploring the next day and see if we could find some squirrels.
Day II
After leaving our wasp-riddled room, we headed out to visit Blue Ridge Reservoir. Neither of us had been there, so we figured that we would check it out.
We turned off onto the dirt road and I continuously scanned for squirrels.
Upon arrival at Blue Ridge, we got out for a few minutes and checked out the lake. Blue Ridge is a cool, deep, canyon-type lake. There were some mergansers on the lake, but nothing else of interest.
And I didn’t see a single squirrel. In fact, I think I saw a single Abert’s squirrel the entire trip, which is just insane to me.
We took our time and headed to Payson, where a friend of mine was actually going to pick me up. I have left a detail of this trip, and that is that I was being picked up by a friend that lives in Pinetop. I would be staying there for a week as we smashed some ducks for several days of the week.
And that, my friends, is part II of this story, that you will just have to wait for. It gets a little bit more exciting.
As always, thank you for reading and I will see you next time.