Sent an invite out to some family members this summer to see who wanted to observe a waterfowl hunt. Got 3 solid responses:

Here's one of the hunts

Enjoy!

[b] Sunday[b]

Probably one of my favourite hunts this past weekend.

I took my uncle Terry out and had an idea where I wanted to go – close to where I had been on Saturday but the wind was telling me to go with my gut and go back to the exact same place I was the day before. Something I’m not a big fan of doing. The wind was a lot stronger than the day before so I was convinced that it would be THE place to be.

We got there again quite early and with 45 minutes to spare – I heard a rumble from a few ATV’s to my left. Spotlights shone on the water and I knew they were WAY too close – within 100yds. I yelled at them but they couldn’t hear me as they were unloading decoys and the bikes were still on.

Fired up my boat and drove over to introduce myself – leaving my uncle in the blind with his headlamp on.

I approached the hunters with a smile and a nice greeting – which was returned in kind. And I told them they were too close to us and would have to move. They said :

“we’re at the wrong spot here – we will move about 100yds further away but we aren’t leaving. We cant get any further to your right either. So, I dunno what you want to do about it…”

I responded with asking them if they’d rather hunt with us or move. They reiterated they weren’t moving but they didn’t mind if we setup with them and hunted with them.

I drove back to my uncle with 3 choices:

1) Hunt with them;
2) Hunt somewhere else; or
3) Stay put and see what happens.

We went with option 3.

So I talked to the other hunters with our decision and left with telling them we’d try not to scare their birds and they should try not to scare ours. We left on a happy note.

Legal time shows up. The distant *thump thump thump* had me looking at my watch surprised to see it was actually 4 minutes after legal and no one had shot early today! Great!

Less than 30 seconds later – 3 GWT buzz our decoys and land 35yds to our left. They lifted, and 1 of the 3 came back into our spread but was going a good pace away from the shoreline. I picked up, shot once and dropped it on the water at the same time the guys to our left shot a nice mallard drake at about 40yds. We both went out to collect our birds at the same time.

Then they started getting a lot of birds pouring into their decoys. But they weren’t committing fully. Staying out at about 50yds – they started shooting well beyond what I thought would be dead birds. They missed quite a few – and I was getting worried we wouldn’t see any ducks come into our spread. They were good callers too. I only used my whistle but one thing I noticed – when the birds were working my decoys – they stopped calling. It was nice to see them respecting the fact I was there and not trying to call my birds away. I did the same for them – if a bird simply didn’t want to land where I was – I stopped calling if it left to go to their spread.

Mutual respect goes a long way in my books. Kudos to those guys.

Finally the sun starts to shine on my decoys and the birds are working back into the water. After a few hours with no shooting from us it was nice to see a lone black duck circle twice and cup up and come in to the dekes at 35yds. Even after I pulled up on it he didn’t see me at all and 5ft above John’s black duck decoy I ‘borrowed’ a shot rang out and a stone dead black duck drake lay motionless in the rippling water.

Great thing about having my uncle Terry there? He retrieved all my birds!! It was awesome! I retrieved the first one – but the other 4 he got for me =)

We would be talking, joking and carrying on then a bird out of nowhere would cup into the spread we would stand up – it would back pedal in mid flight – and my gun kept dropping them in the decoys. It felt great!

I didn’t even need to get them – who needs a dog? Lol

We left that morning firing 12 rounds – 3 water shots, 2 complete misses. For a total of 5 birds – 4 species.

2 x mallards
1 x black duck
1 x teal
1 x wigeon

We called the hunt at 1100h and picked up our small 8 bird spread and headed back to the ramp.

Taking the birds back to John’s place for swabbing, we snapped a few pictures to remember this special time we had together in the blind.



He enjoyed himself and I can see him getting into this sport in the short term.

It was nice sharing the blind with him for those few hours. We talked a lot – mostly about family issues and work. But it was a friendly atmosphere and quite relaxed

He’s been a close uncle as long as I can remember and I was happy to have shared the blind with him. I am solid on my assessment that he’ll be back in the blind with me sooner than later.

In America we try to simulate the pilgrims who settled here first by cooking and eating together in a big feast. In Canada do you guys try to simulate the Vikings by pillaging towns and raping the women? By the way I appreciate your reports and pictures.

lol ^

thanks?

I dont mind sharing bird reports to you guys - you dont hunt here =)

When do you guys start hammering the birds?

I figured you would be covered up by now.
What is the temperature doing up there?

50s-60s currently

We just and I mean JUST got the first push of BB. Divers and mature mallards, pintails, gadwall are starting to show.

Better season than last year.
Our temps are slowly getting cooler whereas last year we went high 60s to low 30s almost overnight. Birds just kept on going never stopped here.

Oh! The redheads I'm seeing this year - wow!

We hammer them in early November through January

When the deer hunters leave and the waterfowl hunters bash on.