Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2021 i Wildfowl

UNCERTAINTY IS THE only certain thing in water-fowling, the part of the game that adds mystery. We have all had outrageous days when we were sure the hunting would be lousy, then wasn’t. Inversely, we’ve all rolled a donut on what we just knew was going to be a slam dunk. The major duck surveys were cancelled this year due to the Canada border closure, so who knows? The great duck factory in the lower 48 shut down due to drought in the Dakotas, but did the birds just go further north to nest, or will it actually mean fewer birds? Could that be offset by so many birds not getting shot in Canada last year? Who knows? Biologists say you can’t stockpile ducks. We just can’t know. Personally, it…

DON’T GIVE UP ON MIGRATING MALLARDS Most duck fanatics, especially those that crave feet-down encounters with greenheads, have reported fewer birds in their specific locale of the country over the past few years. Using a numeric weather severity index, DU researchers have found that hardy ducks like mallards will endure extended periods of harsh winter conditions before moving south, so don’t pull the greenhead plug too early this season: Pray for cold! INDIANA UPS CANADA GOOSE BAG LIMIT As Canada goose populations continue to do well across the Mississippi Flyway, bag limits are rising. For 2021, Indiana hunters will see an increase in the number of dark geese (Canada geese, white-fronted geese) they can put in their totes. The new daily bag limit will be five geese in aggregate for…

EVEN AFTER NEARLY 50 years of waterfowling, Morris Buenemann still learns something new from every hunt. He’s also a fan of our Passages and Band Tales sections. “I've always paid special attention to the band reports in the magazine and try to guess each species from the locations of the banding and the harvest,” he says. The December 2020 Passages section especially caught his attention as it contained two reports of blue geese banded in Attawapiskat, Nunavut. It turns out he had taken a blue goose that same month, also banded near Attawapiskat, a location well south of what he believed to be traditional snow goose nesting area. After contacting the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory, Buenemann learned the bird was actually banded on Akimiski Island. Though it lies just offshore…

WHEN I THINK of America, I think not of Starbucks (as do some hippies), but rather of a Mossberg pump shotgun and a memorable day afield with friends and family seeking fun and food. Obviously, I’m not alone, because since 1961 the family-owned-and-operated firearm firm from North Haven, CT, has sold over 12 million Model 500s to rank-and-file hunters, home defenders, police forces and elite military units everywhere. Why? Because the venerable pump gun works every time, anywhere, yet costs under $500. But my stereotypical thoughts about Mossberg are evolving. In 2020, Mossberg unveiled its 940 JM Pro semi-auto competition shotgun designed by likely the best all-around shooter in history, Jerry Miculek. It’s a gun conceived to compete with the best gas-action semi-autos around, yet thanks to Mossberg’s well-oiled production…

North American waterfowl hunters are familiar with three teal species. Fact is, there are 18 teal types spread around the globe. Australia, New Zealand, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, all these continents (and one country) have teal in residence. Some are prettier than others, but they are all cool little ducks. Maybe the most spectacular looking teal outside the cinnamon family is the stunning baikal drake. Russian born, they primarily winter in eastern Asia. These little beauties favor green-wings in some ways, in fact the hens look very similar. Drakes carry that GW speckled chest and the most prominent head patch is bright green. Add in yellow, black, and white and the baikal drake is truly a one-of-a-kind duck and a trophy in any collection.…

THERE WAS NO doubt that the 2020-2021 duck and goose season was going to be different than all of the other ones we had experienced throughout our hunting careers. Not different because of the weather. Or the migration. Or because of unforeseen incident like our boat being stolen out of a hotel parking lot. No, this season would be different because of the pandemic, the Covid...and an unforeseen opportunity to take a great man who was always deeply committed to supporting waterfowling on what might very well be his last hunt. The bad news kept coming. The borders to the waterfowl Mecca of Canada was closed! What? We can’t go to Canada?! This can’t be happening. But it was. With some of our continental destinations closing their doors due to…

SO LAST YEAR, the legendary Alex Langbell wrote an article in this very publication detailing how to call the shots in the duck blind (Wildfowl October 2020). It was helpful. It was informative. It was, alas, incomplete. Now, don’t blame Langbell for this. We all know the tight-fisted editors at this magazine only give their writers so many words to work with (Oliver Twist voice: “Please, Mr. Knowles. I’d like to buy an adverb?”). And while Langbell’s article gave you everything you need to call shots the RIGHT way, it didn’t tell you much about how to do it the WRONG way. That’s where this piece comes in. Here’s how NOT to call the shot, as illustrated by five shot-callers you probably already know. THE PURIST This is the guy…

I FIRST BECAME aware of the Grumman Sport Boat in 1965. After my University of Maine studies, I was in a training program to become a Game Management Agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Game Agents were assigned the Sport Boat for use in waterfowl banding and law enforcement. At 110 pounds and with its tough rugged construction, it could easily handle car top transport and rough use. Many agents used 10 hp outboards to power their craft on small to medium sized lakes and backwater wetlands of major rivers like the Mississippi. I bought my first Sport Boat in 1973. This boat had several mishaps. While returning from a 1981 Snake River duck hunt in Idaho, a very strong wind gust blew the boat off my truck…

At the end of May, my wife and I picked up a Lab pup. Sadie’s role is to start learning the ropes so that she can eventually take over for our eight-year-old Lab who is slowing down by the season. Anyone who has faced the reality of an older dog and the necessity of a new recruit knows that there are big shoes to fill in that situation. As we all do, I wondered if there was anything I could do differently with this puppy that I haven’t done with my past duck dogs. To figure this out, I spoke with Dr. Craig Grant, who spends his working hours at the Shelby Center Hospital For Animals in Memphis, Tennessee. It turns out, most of what he had to advise me…

IT MIGHT BE Alaska, Canada or even Northern Italy between the two great wars. The Lieutenant is wearing a Navy flyer’s jacket and the older gentleman on the right has a Navy flyer’s hat insignia. There’s snow on the ground, an old car, and a military bus no one alive today can recognize. Over history, many of our military leaders were avid hunters. General of the Armies John J. Pershing, who led the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) to France in WWI, is pictured elsewhere with a big pile of ducks. I knew his grandson Lieutenant Colonel Jack Pershing. He told me he kept his grandfather’s pairs of Purdeys in England for trips there to shoot driven game. Jack is buried alongside his brother, killed in action in Vietnam, and grandfather…

ON AN OVERCAST morning on Nov. 4, 2017, a 25-knot wind was machine-gunning wet sleet and snow against the hull, and John Salamon's scouting expedition was about to pay off big-time. Salamon, his wife, Jasmine, and Branson Keough set up where they had seen a raft of 4,000 diving ducks the day before. As night's curtain rose, ducks started dropping from the sky. "After a 15-minute ride through 3-foot whitecaps, we set up in the bay near a river," Salamon said. "The decoys were 20 yards away and we hid the boat in some pencil reeds. Twenty 20 minutes after legal shooting time, we had our limits. It was load and shoot, load and shoot as fast as we could go. Our shots ranged from 5 to 20 yards and…

THE SIGHT OF crispy skin on a perfectly roasted duck is almost guaranteed to get any mouth watering, and that includes hunters and non-hunters alike. However, any waterfowl hunter who’s attempted roasting a duck or goose whole knows it’s no easy task and is often a matter of compromise, as breasts taste best at 135 degrees Fahrenheit and with an internal temperature and legs at 180. But rarely, if ever, do we hit those marks on both if cooking whole. So, what is our goal? Striking the best balance possible, which requires a bit of give and take. For starters, I recommend brining all your birds prior to cooking. What brining does: It can cut moisture loss in half, meaning even if you overcook your fowl, it will still taste…

A SWATHER HAD just trimmed the miniature alfalfa field, and there was nowhere to hide. We scanned the field edges and surrounding ditches, but the farmer that owned the dirt was just too clean of an operator. Obviously, he was a fan of Roundup, and our goose crew felt helpless as we watched flight after flight of early-season birds pour into the field. We had the geese. We had the permission. We just didn’t have a hide. Not one of us owned a layout. Full-time college students, our funds were limited, but we always seemed to find a way to get it done. We’d crouch into concrete ditches, use tumbleweeds, shovel holes in plowed earth and cover up with corn-stubble-filled chicken wire. None of that was an option. All we…

NEWS THAT THE great Mississippi Delta—used by millions of migrating fowl each year—is vanishing should fill a waterfowler’s heart with terror and dismay. Even if you’ve never been to the Delta and experienced its world-class waterfowl hunting, the word “disappearing” should make you shudder. It may just be the single most critical piece of habitat for waterfowl on earth, a place of mythical status.There are few places where you can experience an epic duck shoot and then leave from a dock and catch a mess of speckled trout, tuna, catfish or bass. While most of us have heard the Delta is declining at an alarming rate of a single football field every 100 minutes, there still is a glimmer of hope. “When I look at an old map of the…

1 HUNTER: Marcus Plein, Red Wing, MN BAND #: 1847-63903 SPECIES: Blue Goose (M) BANDED: 08/06/2008 LOCATION: 35 SSE Johnson Pt., NU RECOVERED: 02/22/2021 LOCATION: Sikeston, MO 2 HUNTER: Dianna Scarborough, Avon, NC BAND #: 2227-42708 SPECIES: American Black Duck (H) BANDED: 09/16/2020 LOCATION: River Herbert, NS RECOVERED: 12/31/2020 LOCATION: 1 mi SW of Buxton, NC 3 HUNTER: Jonathan Alvarez and Addison Ochs, Warwick, RI BAND #: 1937-97544 SPECIES: Atlantic Brant (M) BANDED: 07/26/2011 LOCATION: Prairie Point, NU RECOVERED: 01/09/2021 LOCATION: Warwick, RI COMMENTS: We both had pellets in the bird. 4 HUNTER: Michael Lovejoy, Altona, NY BAND #: 1256-45385 SPECIES: Northern Shoveler (D) BANDED: 08/19/2020 LOCATION: Near Sackville, NB RECOVERED: 10/10/2020 LOCATION: 2.1 mi WSW of Highgate Springs, VT 5 HUNTER: Trevor Brunet, Gouvernuer, NY BAND #: 1937-76497 SPECIES:…

TROPICAL STORM BETA was churning northeast, bearing down on Houston and into Louisiana. The wind was still rolling around from the northwest in her wake, creating pleasant conditions in late September on the middle Texas coast. Bay City lay almost due east of the small rice field pond, a perfect spot to ambush early-season blue-wings. The little ducks were around in big numbers, everyone had been enjoying good shooting. Anticipation was high as decoys splashed down in random fashion and hunters took positions on the north levee. With a few minutes before legal time, the early risers ripped through the wind and splashed down among the decoys. That hunt didn’t last long, only 11 minutes from first shot to last. When the blue-wings do it right, they do it right!…

California is a big state. A real big state. It’s the third largest state geographically in the U.S. and it’s the largest state when it comes to population. California is world famous because of the places and landmarks from Hollywood, to the Giant Redwoods of Shasta. Although this state has incredible hunting and fishing opportunities, one thing California is not known for is Canada geese. This is fair. The white cheeks are not abundant in most parts that are within the state boundaries. You will find a lot of Canada geese in the northern part of the state. Areas well north of the Bay area, and even north of Chico. I have been on so many wonderful Canada goose hunts in California but never have I seen them or hunted…

“I THINK YOUR PUP is lost out there,” sneered my buddy. “She’s just swimming in circles.” Echo, my 11-month-old Pudelpointer, had already brought back two green-winged teal we’d killed in the decoys. Now she was headed after bird number three, one we winged and sent sailing. By the time Echo brought the first two ducks in and I’d sent her on a line for the third, a few minutes had elapsed. I’d taken my eye off the bird, figuring it would hold in the yellow grass poking above the open pond, 75 yards out. When Echo reached the thin grass she began swimming in small circles. It was breezy, cold, and drizzling and I couldn’t see the duck. As Echo’s circles grew slightly bigger, my buddy—who’d been skeptical about her…