Well, my buddy Sprig showed up out here for a few days of ducking and we had quite a time of it.. The good bad and the ugly ended up as our theme.

Initially Sprig made it to San Francisco alright but his flight to Arcata was cancelled mid flight when the planes radar went out. They went back to San Fran and I made a 5 hour drive to get him the next morning.

We proceeded up to the Valley where we had a 3 day hunt booked with South Wind Guide service. This turned out the be a good, These guys are great and are dedicated to showing you a good time.
The good was also that we saw tons of birds and more Specks than you could ever believe. The bad turned out to be our shooting! We repeatedly missed birds called into range time after time. With the exception of one hot streak where I went 4 for 4, my gunning sucked!

We had 2 good days but the third day was disappointing as the weather and fog had the birds all flying close to the moon. All in all a fun 3 day adventure in the valley.

We returned to the Lost Coast for a hunt on Sunday, We made a long run in the dark to our intended spot after launching at the Pedrazzini launch site on the Eel River in Loleta, Ca.

It was slow until a bunch of hot running gwt came pouring in and Jeremy doubled and I took down a beautiful drake. We later managed a couple buffies and Sprig took his first Aleutian goose. Our gunning was much improved and we seemed to shoot where we aimed this day.

The ugly appeared when the winds picked up to 40 to 45 MPH and we started back toward the ramp. As we hit the mouth of the Eel, it started getting hairy, and when we turned up the river into a hard SW wind, it went from hairy to scary as the 3 to 4 foot waves beat the crap out of us for about 2 miles. When we got to the Cock Robin Island bridge things went from scary to downright terrifying as the full brunt of the wind hit us sideways as we had to run across the waves to the ramp. I was never so glad as when my feet hit the ground!

I walked up to get the truck and found much to my disgust that some SOBs had smashed the drivers side window and cleaned out my truck to the tune of about $1500 worth of equipment. Tn make all this even a more fun experience, I had to drive around in the pouring down rain for 4 days until I could the window replaced.

Anyway, here's some pictures, pre robbery which accounts for the smiles.











The Princess of Dunnigan!!! Used, Abused, and discarded by someone near our blind

Looks like the north side of the Sutter Buttes to me. Perhaps somewhere around Gridley. Sounds like you had some good hunting. This season in the Sacramento Valley has been the worst in 40 years according to a rice farmer friend of mine. Did you take any pictures of the Eel River area you hunted?

We were over on a private club next to Grey Lodge.

The picture of the aleutian is from the Eel area, 7 mile slough to be exact.

Here's a couple more from that area