October 2020 • Nebraskaland 31
look for areas with slack water and
shallow bars, what they call slicks,
where the birds want to sit out of the
wind."
While you might fi nd some good
spots right off the main channel, some
of the best hunting is often well off it,
Kostinec said. Getting to those spots is
easier than it once was thanks to mud
motors, which handle shallow water
and obstacles better than conventional
outboards, but it is still tricky.
"You've got to fi nd ways to shoot
these little chutes," Kostinec said.
"Once you spend some time on the
river you can fi gure out how to read
the water to get back into those back
chutes, and sometimes that's where
the birds are hiding.
"When old birds won't work a spread
on a sandbar tip, you've got to go back
somewhere in the middle of a sandbar
or sand fl at. They just avoid spreads
and they go back and look for hiding
places. They're going out looking
for short grass to hide in, some kind
of marsh grass, bulrush, sedges or
whatever else."
Finding those spots in the dark can
be a fruitless, not to mention dangerous,
search. That's why most hunters,
including Kostinec, spend plenty of
time scouting during the day. After
identifying areas they want to hunt,
they leave a track on their GPS on the
way back to the boat ramp that they can
follow out to their spot in the dark the
next morning and not have to second
guess themselves on where those
sandbars or logs are in the river.
Those obstacles are known to take
out lower units or steering cables and
even leave hunters high and dry. "In
some ways it's nice," Kostinec said,
referring to the hazards of the area. "It
keeps the amateurs out of this area,
although I've had to pull people off
of sandbars before that got rammed
up on them for not knowing how to
read the river." He's been there, too,
and has a list of people he can call if
ABOVE: Steve Wilson of Lincoln puts the finishing touches on a decoy spread as the sun rises above the Missouri
River delta above Lewis and Clark Lake. LEFT: Terry Kostinec of Springfield, South Dakota, takes a drake mallard
from his black lab, Blue, while hunting the delta.
