Every top sports team seems to have a “go-to” guy: One outstanding player who can be counted on to produce action regardless of how tough conditions are. Outdoorsmen, on the other hand, have special “go-to” places. Hunters have certain covers that always seem to hold grouse or woodcock, a particular section of woods where a couple of big bucks hang out every fall, or a special field that always attracts a bevy of turkeys. Anglers have favorite Atlantic salmon pools, dependable runs on a trout brook, or a section of lake that produces big landlocked salmon time after time.

My “go-to” spot is a duck pond, and over the last 10 years a visit to this small blue teardrop in a sea of green forest has never, yes, not even once, failed to produce shooting. I gun this waterfowling hot spot sparingly, three or four times a season at most, but more likely only once or twice. Part of the reason for my infrequent visits is the multitude of other productive rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds to jump shoot, float, and hunt over decoys. In truth my abstinence is maintained to keep this remote roost pond vital and ever dependable by never overhunting.

Although I had waterfowl hunted a stream and another small lake within a mile of this duck haven for years, I never realized it existed. Then about a decade ago, a close buddy who was running a trap line near the pond kept seeing duck traffic in and out every day and told me about it on the QT. I promised not to blab about his great trapping area and he vowed to keep the secluded sanctuary for ducks a secret. Since the tiny blue gem had no official name on any map or atlas we checked, I christened it after my fur-trapping friend, and Tom’s Pond was founded.

At less than six acres, the pond has two parts separated by an old beaver dam. The main section is long and narrow at 75 yards across and 600 yards long with a boomerang bend. Tom’s Pond has a soft mud bottom covered with vegetation and 7 feet is the deep spot, with most of the water only 2-4 feet in depth. Cattails and reeds surround the entire shoreline with brush and forest forming a second layer, and no road, not even a dirt farm trail, comes within 500 yards. From only 50 yards deep in the woods the small lagoon still can’t be seen, but the constant splashing and quacking of ducks can sure be heard!

Gunning guests

Jim Stout, a longtime hunting partner who had moved from Presque Isle to Bangor, called one evening a couple of years ago to set up a duck hunting get-together. He and one of his new gunning buddies, Steve Huff, a Kansas transplant now living in Lucerne, were in a quandary. Steve’s Dad, Ron Huff, a commercial airline pilot stationed in Houston, was in Maine to visit and enjoy some waterfowl hunting.

The trio’s first sea duck hunt near Blue Hill had gone well, but winds and waves had wiped out days two and three. Their backup plan of gunning area fields for geese and local rivers and swales for ducks had yielded no honkers and mediocre duck action at best. Jim had telephoned to see if birds were thicker and more cooperative up north.

I allowed that just that morning some friends and I had managed to reduce the population of Canadas in the grain fields and increase the census in my freezer. As for the duck hunting, I explained I just might have a spot, but there were two conditions. A vow of secrecy was a prime requisite, and each sport had to prepare themselves for an experience alongside which past outings would pale and all future hunts be judged. Thinking I was joking, Jim laughed heartily in disbelief and even needled me a bit about this mysterious marshland. But then he’d never been to Tom’s Pond.

Some years a late November or early December duck hunt would have been out of the question. Freezing fall temperatures can lock up local lakes and ponds in a layer of ice well before Thanksgiving, but a late Indian summer that autumn had prolonged open water and our waterfowling season. Further to our benefit, snow and cold conditions in Canada had forced ducks and geese to move south, and they were stopping over in hoards to rest, feed, and fatten up in northern Maine.

Wild weekend

At 5 a.m. Friday, Jim, Steve, and Ron were standing on my doorstep raring to go. My truck was already jam packed with goose decoys, lay-out blinds, and gear, and we loaded three more huge tubs of magnum shell decoys in Jim’s pickup. It was a half-hour drive to the cut grain field and another 30 minutes to set up our blinds and decoy spread. As is often the case during November in the Crown of Maine, the weather was less than pleasant: Twenty mph winds, gusting to 30, temperatures in the high 20s, and intermittent snow flurries and sleet.

In desperate need of food to keep warm, the geese flew steadily, but the wind worked against us. Although the birds would check us out, some circling half a dozen times, few swung close, and still fewer landed. After almost two hours and only four honkers in hand, I decided to change the rules since the geese weren’t going to cooperate.

We switched from 3- to 31/2-inch shells and from No. 2 shot to BBs. No more 25- and 30-yard shot limits, I’d be calling the shots at 40-50 yards, chances which we had been passing up all morning. The next two flocks yielded a pair each to finish our limits of eight geese, and although multiple shooters and volleys were used each time, the end result was efficient and gratifying.

After picking up the spread and loading the trucks, we headed home to thaw out and have lunch. Then goose gear was unloaded and replaced with duck gear and the canoe was set onto the carrier and tied down. By 2 p.m. the four of us were trekking across two harvested potato fields and a cut grain field taking turns in pairs hauling a canoe full of decoys, guns, ammo belts, paddles, flotation vests, and more.

Despite the rising winds and lowering mercury, we had worked ourselves into a lather in our waders and insulated clothing by the time we reached the woods. Then it was time for all four of us to carry the boat 300 yards through thick brush and trees over a wet, boggy trail, often sinking to our knees in moss and muck. Our noisy approach spooked the first group of ducks off the pond when we could barely get glimpses of blue water through the forest. The rush of wings and raucous quacking stopped everyone in their tracks, and even gave me a chill and a jolt of adrenaline, although I’d experienced it before and was kind of expecting it.

Suddenly everyone had more strength and energy. My description and promises weren’t just sugar plum fantasies. Less than a minute later we were on the shoreline sliding the canoe into the water among the reeds, and actually watching several small bands of mallards and blacks leap skyward. Tom’s Pond was bigger than life, and a euphoria fueled by unique locales and rare events that only devout duck hunters understand took over.

Within 15 minutes a dozen vividly colored cork decoys and a trio of tip-up feeder tails were set, and I held a jerk string attached to a central pair of mallard blocks. Twice while setting out the dekes, ducks had made passes over the canoe wanting to return home and settle in. Jim had backed the canoe into the reeds 35 yards to my right, and would shoot from there. Steve settled in among the rushes and cattails 40 yards to my left and Ron was 50 yards further around a slight bend in the shoreline. It was almost 3 p.m. and we had a little less than 11/2 hours to bag our birds.

I was listening to Jim stow his paddle and load his shotgun when Ron opened fire, and just after the third shot a quartet of mallards came streaking around the corner. Steve’s first shot rocked a bird and his second tumbled it, and then he splashed the last duck in line. By the time they got to me, the pair was swinging away, but my load of No. 4s managed to catch up to the tail-end greenhead.

Less than 10 minutes later a mixed flock of blacks and mallards circled high twice, and then literally tumbled from the sky as the boys called and I moved the decoys with the jerk string. About a dozen ducks came right at me from the opposite shore, wings set, feet down. When they were a foot off the water just outside the decoys, I stood and tumbled the lead black duck. The flock split like dried kindling, half toward Jim and half to Steve. I hurried along a female mallard with my second round and swatted her with my third.

Jim got a mallard and black duck double, Steve got air, air, and finally a hefty greenhead, and Ron got left out. Ron and Steve knocked down three ducks from the next flight, and Jim and I tagged one each from a trio that almost snuck by us from high and behind. Over the next 30 minutes, ducks in singles and groups strafed our decoys, and more often than not some stayed behind, until with 15 minutes of shooting time left, we were limited out.

Over the next 20 minutes as we rejoined forces and began picking up decoys, dusk closed in and the real excitement took place. A fireworks display couldn’t have better filled the sky over Tom’s Pond nor riveted our attention like the hundreds of incoming ducks. Some came in high and maple-leafed to the surface, and a few arrived low and fast, splashing down and skidding to a halt. Their aerobatics were breathtaking as ducks arrived from every direction in groups of all sizes.

Often ducks flew so close to the canoe that Jim or Steve could have reached out and touched them. Birds landed within two or three yards of the boat and just as close to Ron and I standing in water up to our knees just beyond the reeds at the pond’s edge. They seemed to know we were now harmless. The finale was a flock of about 20 Canada geese that came honking and lumbering in between shore and the canoe, and then unconcernedly paddled into the twilight as the canoe came to shore.

Ron and Steve maintain it was the best duck hunt they have ever experienced. Jim and I have enjoyed some good hunts since on Tom’s Pond, but not that good. When we all reminisce, as great as the gunning was, the biggest thrill was the sundown cavalcade of waterfowl come to roost. In all the trips I’ve made to my “go-to” duck hideaway, I’ve never seen another waterfowler. I hope some of you are lucky enough to eventually enjoy a Tom’s Pond in your hunting history.

Outdoor feature writer Bill Graves can be reached via e-mail at bgravesoutdoors@ainop.com