By far the finest duck hunting I've ever experienced took place below Venice in a small canal down Grand Pass on days when the northeast corner of West Bay was dry -- well, exposed mud -- from the combined effects of a stout norther and the day's meteorological low tide. Granted, the one-duck limit on those birds at the time was pretty frugal, but on most days my one male can was supplemented with a redhead or ringneck, or two. And I was actually hunting rather than staring disgustedly at lifeless decoys spread across a mudflat before me.

That hunt took place in a canoe whose silhouette was broken by either a stand of canes or a thick patch of elephant ears with me scrunched down very low within it. With nowhere else around for them to go, the birds came beautifully to my decoys.

That's something else that almost half a century's experience with these fine ducks has taught me. Find a little place that they like, and it doesn't take much to convince them to come. Places like the small bar-pit off Two O'Clock Bayou in the West Atchafalaya Floodway, the corner on the south side of Caddo just east of Buzzard Bay, Seven-Acre Pocket -- and that little sweet spot that started so much of this -- on Wallace, and that canal down Grand Pass. You'll probably be more consistent hunting divers on or near big water, but don't overlook the little spots. You may stumble across a real jewel.