Innholdsfortegnelse for June/July 2022 i Wildfowl

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE, an incredible experience awaits you. On the wall behind me are king eiders and a harlequin, mounted beautifully on an ocean reef setting by famous Kanati Taxidermy. The birds were taken just a few years ago on the same island in the middle of the Bering Sea where they film Deadliest Catch. But in 2020, the deadliest catch proved to be a bug. Who could have foreseen that the chance to go up there and chase kings—always just a matter of time, money, and boldness—would be halted by a pandemic that closed down St. Paul Island? Happily, there are rumors of it re-opening, but initially it was believed that the closure was permanent. We all assume we’ll one day have time for that bucket list adventure, the…

‘TWAS THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS and all through the marsh not a creature was stirring The hunting had really slowed down due to unseasonably warm weather, and it had been more than a week since Bradley Close visited his Kansas hunting lease. Nonetheless, he ventured out for what he figured would be a very short duck hunt, stopping along the way to buy minnows for an afternoon of crappie fishing. Only one small group of mallards visited his spread that morning and from that he managed to drop a single bird as it flared to his right. Approaching the downed duck, he noticed something peculiar as he reached for it along the bank. However, the bird was down but not out. “ He looked dead, but all of a sudden…

IF YOU THRIVE ON SLEEP DEPRIVATION, frustration, gas station pizza and playing in the mud, then you might be a snow goose hunter. Luckily these questionable traits are offset with the occasional payoff of chaos as thousands of snow geese cyclone over your massive spread of decoys. This spectacle of a snow goose “tornado” is one of the most incredible phenomena in the waterfowl world to experience, and keeps the addiction alive for the serious snow goose hunter. Hunting light geese (Snow, Blue and Ross’s), specifically during the spring Conservation Order, is an entirely different monster to tackle than any other waterfowl hunting endeavor. Imagine a no-holds barred goose hunt with extended shooting hours, no daily bag limits, blaring e-callers, and extended magazines. That’s a recipe for mayhem! The spring…

I’M AT THE AGE NOW where I appreciate a good specialist. Any kind of professional who has devoted years to developing an expert-level of understanding on a topic that might arc into my life at some point. As you can imagine this can range from our personal health care to who we hire to fix our hunting truck, or more appropriately, train our dogs if we need some guidance. While most of us intuitively understand what we want out of a professional in many facets of our lives, we often overlook this when it comes to our duck dogs’ health. We reckon that one veterinarian is as good as the next, but that’s not always the case with sporting dogs. The four-legged buddies we bring into the blind with us…

THE FOLLOWING MORNING WE SLEPT IN, as we were in no rush to get to the middle of the Great Salt Lake to hunt teal. “We’ll let the birds feed in the lake and be set up when they return to fresh water to drink,” shared Rob Friedel. Friedel’s love of duck hunting is contagious. We met at the ramp at 9 00 a.m. Heading across the flat landscape in Friedel’s airboat–water levels at record lows–once we hit the big water, there didn’t appear to be a duck around. But after 10 minutes of driving, Rob killed the engine, stood up and looked through binoculars. Handing them to me, several thousand teal could be seen in the distance. “We’ll head over there,” Rob pointed, “get set up and wait for…

“NATE, I FOUND IT,” Belch said over the phone. “The perfect stasher. Can you be here in 20 minutes?” I grabbed my coat and was out the door. Ronnie Belcher (“Belch” to his friends) and I had been in the market for a stasher boat since last November. Not a new boat, mind you. A stasher. We needed it to hunt a new public pothole we’d stumbled across the day after Thanksgiving. The pond was tucked away in a steep canyon along a creek at the base of a hill, choked with Russian Olives. In other words: invisible to Google Earth. If you didn’t walk up to it, you wouldn’t know it was there. But the ducks knew, and when Belch and I fought our way through the tangle of…

THE FIELDS BEHIND THESE HUNTERS ARE FLAT clear to the horizon. But that’s not the only clue, look at their day’s bag! Lot-a-pickin’ tonight! The house and out building suggest farmstead with some pines for a wind break. My vote is for the prairies of Manitoba dubbed “The Duck Factory,” by the late Jimmy Robinson. Robinson was a real character of the first water. If memory serves me right, he wrote the outdoor column for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and also was the trap-shooting and duck-hunting editor of a magazine or two. An aircraft mechanic in World War I, following the Armistice in 1918, he came home and broadened out into journalism and entrepreneurship with his Delta Marsh duck club. Known as a bit of a mooch, he always begged a…

A WARM, CALM, DAWN DOES NOT typically portend a day that’s “just ducky.” It was the first day of the second split of the season and the November sky showed not the faintest shadow of a single cloud. Yet, for Roger Tesson and his hunting buddies, it was about to rain ducks. “We were sitting there, a half-hour into shooting light,” Tesson said. “We shot four wood ducks and were getting ready to pick them up when another group with gadwalls and teal came in. We dropped those ducks and were going out to pick them up when two of the guys who stayed in the blind shot into a flock of ringnecks. About 11 a.m., we were going to pick up, but decided to wait a little longer, when…

LAST DUCK SEASON WAS the best I’ve experienced in the places I hunted throughout the Pacific Flyway. Looking back on what most impacted my success is a good way to understand the things that truly made a difference. For instance, I invested in new duck decoys. There’s no doubt the full body standing and floating decoys made a difference, as did the silhouettes when hunting fields. I got a new shotgun last season too, a Browning Maxus II, which I shot with confidence. And the new calls I ran turned ducks very well. But the one thing that accounted most for my higher success was being able to access prime places to hunt, and to do that, I used a boat. I know what you’re thinking, “Why spend $20,000 on…

EDITORS’ NOTE: This is a fictional essay by the late Mike Morgan, a beloved groundbreaking tv producer for MOJO Outdoors and an industry giant. Mike wrote this during his final days, before breaking a thousand hearts by passing too young due to health complications The family feels that it is strongly autobiographical, and wished to include it in WILDFOWL. Please note the tribute at the end by Terry Denmon. Things just weren’t as easy as they used to be. The desire and need still burned inside, but the ability was dwindling. Sixty some odd years of duck hunting would soon come to an end. We would pick up the old man around four every morning during duck season and head to his favorite hole in the marsh. Why the old…

Duck boats today come as dream rlgs, a far cry from those in the past. With high-end manufacturers crafting custom-tailored duck boats, hunters no longer must cut, tweak and otherwise mutilate perfectly good fishing boats to get the features they need for a winter on the water. This has created a pleasant experience for the duck boat shopper, allowing them to order exactly what they want, right off the assembly line. While different boats serve different roles, that doesn’t mean that selecting your next craft should take years off your life as you fret over the details. Jeff Coats, A.K.A. Pitboss, has spent enough time on the big water guiding seaduck hunts to rival nearly any captain in the U.S. Over the years, he has learned from experience what he…

IN ALL HONESTY, I don’t remember much about the moment, other than the brief confusion I felt years ago as I stood there on a chilly winter’s day, staring at a strange-looking duck that my late, great black Lab Maggie had fetched to hand. On the one hand, I thought I was looking at a mallard, all the way down to the tail feather curls. But then again, one glance at the rest of the duck showed a faint resemblance to a wigeon, another common duck in my area. Quoting the original greenhead, Mr. Grinch, I sat there and puzzled until my puzzler was sore Finally, as my brain worked through the duck blind conundrum, it dawned on me that I had just shot a hybrid duck, a cross between…

❶ BAND #: 1208-87405 HUNTER: Jonathan Mosmeier, Sunman, IN SPECIES: Canada Goose (F) BANDED: 07/25/2018 | Near Peawanuck, ON RECOVERED: 01/09/2022 | Sunman, IN ❷ BAND #: 1265-13999 HUNTER: Greg Medlin, Ruston, LA SPECIES: Wood Duck (D) BANDED: 09/03/2021 | Near Estelline, SD RECOVERED: 12/18/2021 | 10 mi W of Waverly, LA ❸ BAND #: 1256-70058 HUNTER: Marc Karklins, Irvine CA SPECIES: Gadwall (H) BANDED: 08/20/2020 | near Summer Lake, OR RECOVERED: 01/15/2022 | San Jacinto Wildlife Area, CA ❹ BAND #: 11158-34851 HUNTER: Cody Decker, Farmington, NM SPECIES: Canada Goose (F) BANDED: 06/20/2014 | Near Randolph, UT RECOVERED: 01/07/2021 | 10 mi W of Farmington, NM ❺ BAND #: 2017-82686 HUNTER: Doug Elliot, Wethersfield, CT SPECIES: Specklebelly Goose (M) BANDED: July/10/2018 | near Utqiagvik, AK RECOVERED: 12/05/2021 | Garwood,…

As the last tundra swan in a string of seven peeled from the flock, my heart raced. When it bowed its neck and cupped its wings, I knew this was it. It was the first flock of the morning. The big bird swiftly lost elevation, cutting the distance from 300 to 100 yards in the blink of an eye. “Be sure and lead it,” whispered Chad Yamane, as he changed his mouth calls to a bubbly, inviting chuckle. The swan leveled out and circled the decoys, aligning in the wind for a final approach. The big bird seemed to be moving so slowly, like it’d fall from the sky if it didn’t start flapping its wings. Just when I thought the bird would drop the landing gear and coast into…

DO YOU LOVE THE SMELL OF SWAMP GAS, gun powder, and coffee on a crisp fall morning? While ripping through the marsh in a shiny new duck boat equipped with a mud motor with gluttonous horsepower sounds like a good time, don’t overlook the duck-killing value of a smaller, manual powered craft. These smaller vessels are perfect for small water, big water shorelines, and getting deep in the cattail marshes found across North America. OLD TOWN SPORTSMAN DISCOVERY SOLO 119 Weighing in at only 56 pounds, the Old Town Sportsman Discovery Solo 119 canoe is the ideal grab-and-go duck hunting machine Incorporating a unique design, it offers the simplicity and utility of a solo canoe with the agility and handling of a kayak (canoeyak?). Simply put, this isn’t your daddy’s…