One of the most fascinating and productive duck hunts in my 35-year waterfowling career didn't start out as a duck hunt. Last November, I was invited to Woodward, Okla., to hunt white-tailed deer.

Strip mine ponds remain open during frigid temperatures because of high salt content.

I arrived in Oklahoma City, where I soon met Kevin Howard and hunting partner, Bob Robb, of Arizona. Until then, the weather had been mild. However, as we tossed our gear into Howard's truck, dark clouds appeared, accompanied by increasing winds and falling temperatures. Before daylight the following morning, the ground was covered with an inch of snow, flakes the size of dinner plates filled the air, a brutal wind was howling and the mercury hovered somewhere between zero and nothing.

That day, I saw little, save for a skittish six-pointer, a covey of bobwhites, and much to my delight, several small flocks of mallards trading between the Cimarron River and a series of tiny potholes scattered around my ice-box of a tower blind.

Already, I was plotting as to how I would broach the subject to Howard as to my trading my .270 for a 12-bore.

The next morning, although still unusually cold, arrived with bright blue skies. After an uneventful daybreak, Robb, our guide, Corey Self, and I arrived at a high bluff overlooking the Cimarron Valley, where I took the opportunity to shoot a series of digitals of the scenery.

"Buck! There's a buck, M.D.!" I turned to face Robb's hissed announcement. "Drop the camera and get over here!"

The man was correct -- there was indeed a buck, and a nice deer at that, walking out of the Cimarron toward the bottom of the bluff. Dropping into the prone position, I centered the cross hairs on the buck's chest. "Two-fifty," coached Robb off my left shoulder.

Simply laying in natural cover can be the best option to hide from incoming ducks.

"Wait 'til he stops and turns."

When the whitetail did as my friend wished, I touched the trigger -- and missed. Unsure of where the shot had originated, the buck ran just a short distance and stopped. "Easy now. Hold a little low," Robb said. This time, the 130-grain ballistic tip found its mark, and the buck fell not far from the river's edge.

"Nice!" Robb said, slapping me on the back. "What do you think there, Mister First Whitetail with a Rifle?" Smiling, I racked the silver empty out of the breech, shook my friend's hand, turned to Self, and said, "Awesome! Now, tell me about this duck hunting."

Non-Stop Ducks
Unbeknownst to me, and while Robb and I were freezing in box blinds or hauling dead deer up out of seemingly bottomless canyons, Howard, along with Kenny Perry, owner of O-Kan Outfitters, and hunting partner, Andy Davis, had been tagging full limits of puddlers and divers over little more than a couple dozen mallard blocks.

"We're walking in," Howard said back at the lodge while showing off the morning's take of greenheads, wigeon, redheads, bluebills and an incredible bull canvasback. "It's a small mallard spread on an eight-acre strip pit, more or less, and a natural blind in the willows. It's non-stop action."

Curious as to why, given the extraordinarily low temperatures, these still waters weren't locked up solid, Howard simply smiled and said but one word: "Salt."