Innholdsfortegnelse for April/May 2019 i Wildfowl

THE MONEY WAS on the bluebirds; partly cloudy, temperature in the 40s and 50s, no wind, but by 8:45 we had eight fat Canada geese on the ground, the rig picked up and were headed for the barnyard. Part of the fun was having a shotgun that fit and did the job on the muzzle end. No, not my 1924 Super Fox with its custom stock, but an out-of-the-box Beretta A400 Xtreme Plus. I had worked up the gun on paper, and the 1½ by 2½-inch drop at comb and heel were just a hair less straight than what my physique prefers. Not wanting to take an untried shotgun into the field, I used it the week before opening day for our skeet league. Our team was battling for the…

TIM JOSEPH’S DUCK HUNT had taken a wild turn as we crept along the riverbank, where deep, slithery impressions left by cai man made trails that were punctu ated by tracks of the capybara, the giant rodent we could not wait to see. After hours of hiking, a heavy bodied hairy black wild pig was spotted rolling in the sun along the banks, and Joseph’s SB3 was about to prove it was a lot more than a duck gun. In the gun’s gullet were primi tive low velocity duck loads that had been pried open and stuffed with hand cast slugs or chunks of lead that these backcountry Argen tine guides had hacked off an old piece of lead pipe plumbing fixture with their long, wicked gaucho knife, the facon’.…

SHOTGUN SHELLS, SODA CANS, and gumbo mud. My eyes were fixed on the floor of the pit as the sound of wings passed overhead. At this moment, I’d forgotten about the chilly, damp air and spitting drizzle. My heart was pumping too fast to care. As they banked, we backed off on the calls. Guns raised, and feathered bodies splashed into the sheetwater. The scene is replayed thousands of times each season across Southeast Missouri’s Bootheel, an area rich in habitat and duck hunting tradition. It wasn’t mallards today, however, but snow geese. The spring migration was on, and hundreds of thousands of white birds were passing through on their journey north. Watching the big show over water isn’t necessarily the most common way to hunt white birds, but when…

IT WAS NOTHING short of devastating. What was once an annual $40 million injection into Maryland’s economy came to an abrupt end in 1995 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service closed goose hunting in much of the Atlantic Flyway. The moratorium lasted four years and changed the Eastern Shore’s hunting culture for good. “Most of the outfitters on the Eastern Shore went out of business,” says Tyler Johnson, president of the Maryland Outfitters and Guides Association. “It was rough. A few of us switched to ducks or deer and some others got back into it when the season was re-opened, but a lot of people just found something else to do. Motels, restaurants, gas stations, they were all hurt by the closure.” The Chesapeake region was reduced to one…

MANAGING A PROPERTY for wildfowl is a labor of love, and that’s a good thing because proper land management is a year-round task. With the arrival of spring, migrating birds are headed back north to raise their broods and the time has come for duck hunters to start cultivating their land with crops to draw in and hold birds for the fall. By properly managing water levels in your impoundment and planting productive seed blends, you’ll be on track for a fantastic hunting season, but making mistakes during your spring drawdown and planting routine will cost time, money, and effort and can spoil your dreams of building a duck paradise. FLASH FLOODS If you do not have the ability to manipulate the water level in your duck pond, you’re facing…

FIGHTING THROUGH WAVES whipped up by a 20 mph wind, Joe Hines knew just where he was headed, hunting Rend Lake in Illinois with friend, Larry Provence. “It was one of the first times we hunted from our new boat blind,” Hines said. “Larry helped me build it. We set up in a treeline on some open water because we knew ducks would want to sit there. We set three-dozen G&H mallard decoys, a dozen G&H Canada goose floaters and a dozen Avery specklebellies.” Hines’ blind was so well camouflaged, a flock of 40 mallards decoyed right in the hunters’ faces. “We shot eight greenheads, two gadwalls, a limit of two Canada geese each and two specklebellies,” he said. “Geese are a bonus in that area. I have had some…

TIMBO is a dark yellow (fox red) Lab. During both hunting and training situations, Timbo is beyond a doubt the most focused Lab any of us have ever seen. In the duck blind, the switch is on. Conversely, he turns the switch off in the house. He exhibits loads of style and drive, has a fantastic nose, is steady and quiet in the blind, but all business when cast. His conformation is representative of the breed standard. For the past 15 years, Bill Gibson has studied, trained and learned how to apply low-force training methods from masters in the United Kingdom, Ireland and U.S. Bill and his dogs have won Team and Gundog Challenges in Northern Ireland. He has also served as a judge for the British Field Trial Society…

WHEN WE PUPPY shop, we look for quality genetics that should produce athletic, physically healthy dogs with drive to spare. When it comes to duck dogs, there is always a heavy emphasis on prey drive and the ability to work from dark to dark in the harshest conditions as it pertains to puppy choice. But what about a dog’s problem-solving skills, or ability to learn? Canine intelligence is something we think of in blanket terms, like dalmatians are dumb or border collies are smart. When it comes to duck dogs, most of us have the attitude that we’ll take our retrievers how they come intelligence-wise, wherever they may fall on the brainy spectrum. Here’s the thing, though, in addition to quality training we can foster better brain development and actually…

WE'RE NOT SURE WHERE this is, but they sure killed a bunch! Its probably before 1910, as two of these hunters are shooting what appear to hardware-store double guns. These were inexpensively made side-by-sides from Belgium and companies here, like the Crescent Fire Arms Co.in Norwich, Connecticut. Crescent made shotguns under at least 100 trade names like Enders Royal Service, Faultless Goose Gun, Keen Cutter and more for sale in hardware stores, gun shops and by mail-order houses. The guy on the left is shooting a Winchester Model 1897, so named for its first year of production and probably costing our hunter $25. It looks to be a solid-frame gun that was replaced by the more familiar take-down model. The exposed-hammer 1897—later renamed the 97 —stayed in Winchester’s lineup until…

HE SITS BESIDE ME ON A SCRAP of burlap, velvet brown eyes intently scanning the heavens. The rhythmic quivering of his body belies a scarcely-suppressed enthusiasm for the hunt. Should a pair of mallards appear on the horizon or the honking of a flight of geese betray their presence, his bodily tremors will ramp into a veritable earthquake. For although just a dog, there’s not a more enthusiastic waterfowler on the planet. ...breeding is not lost on this hard-charger who will run his pads to ruin on the flinty hills favored by chukars. But given the choice I can’t help think he would rather hunt geese than grouse. But Percy’s an oddball. No blocky-headed Lab or lusty retriever, his flanks are adorned with the feathery hair and flecked hide of…

“SO HOW HAVE things been with you and Tiffany lately?” Dave’s tone was concerned, but his eyes stayed fixed on the patch of overcast sky above our duck blind. “Still a bit rocky?” I shrugged. “Same as ever, I guess.” “Huh.” A pause. “You know, Lucy and I have been there before. We get it.” Another pause while we both watched the empty sky. “I know you’re not into stuff like this, but we know a great guy who can really…” “Listen, Dave. We’ve had this discussion before. Like twenty times. We’re not interested. Either of us.” Dave raised his eyebrows. “Alright, alright. I get it. Just sayin’ – there’s no shame in getting help. Couples’ therapy has done wonders for us. Wonders.” Dave couldn’t see my eye-roll, which was…