Innehållsförteckning för June - July 2017 från Wildfowl

SHE’S LOOKING AT me now, standing on her hind legs in the back yard so her head pops above my office windowsill. The always-lonely dog, who was just pacing back-and-forth in the light February snowfall. The guilt pangs well up; I need to go throw her some retrieves. It’s that constant low-level I-gotta-train-her-more stress, and I ponder all this. I’d forgotten just how involved getting a pup was, how much work, and above all just how destructive they can be. I simply don’t have the patience that I think I used to have. But did I ever really? Back in college, after a breakup, I told my friends I am never settling down again unless I meet a gorgeous blonde sorority girl ex-gymnast who loves the outdoors. A week later,…

BLUE-WING WINDFALL Experimental September teal seasons will continue for another year in Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Michigan will extend its season to 10 days. The seasons are still on a trial basis. The USFWS will decide if they can be permanent after this fall. PINTAIL, BLACK DUCK LIMITS CHANGE Hunters throughout the U.S. will see a reduced bag limit of pintails from two per day to one. Daily black duck limits will double from one bird to two. Both changes are based on population surveys, previous hunter harvest figures and other data. IDAHO OUTBREAK An estimated 4,200 ducks, geese and other birds died from avian cholera outbreak near Parma, Idaho, in February. Idaho Fish and Game collected the dead birds and buried…

EVEN WITH THE best of intentions, my dogs get taken for granted. They’re expected to find birds in adverse conditions, and hunt all day despite minimal offseason exercise. But the root—or rather, foot—of their most overlooked features are ones that do the most work every day of the year: their paws. Which is a shame, because a cut or injury to a dog’s footpads can be frustratingly difficult to heal, and all but assures a lengthy hunting hiatus. Here’s some sobering food for thought for field hunters, too. Have you ever stared at a cut stem of barley and thought, “boy, that looks like it could do some damage?” You’re not far off. Modern crop varieties have been engineered tougher to withstand environmental damages and disease. So tough in fact,…

BLACK CLOUD HAS always been a bird killer. But it came with a few caveats, i.e. no ported chokes and it burned on the dirty side. Those days are a distant memory for the folks at Federal Premium, which announced the much-improved next generation of Black Cloud at SHOT show. WF editors had the good fortune to shoot the new shell, called Flex, from fall to spring, zapping mallards, honkers and snows in Manitoba, North Dakota, Colorado and Arkansas. It performed like black death, dropping birds both in the decoys and also past 60 yards with exceptional knockdown power on a trip south for white geese. Made up of Flitestopper pellets, which retain the parting line from stamping along with normal steel shot, Black Cloud Flex contains a new style…

LAST ISSUE I broke down the importance of natural hold and carry, the foundation for force fetching, or the trained retrieve. This process of getting a dog to pick something up on command, hold it, return it to you, and release on command, is often viewed negatively by amateur trainers. This is because force fetching is often done wrong due to a lack of understanding the process, or worse, because you try to shortcut it. This is such an extensive process that covering it all in a single column would require leaving far too much important information out. Instead, I’ll break down the beginning stages of force fetching here, and then follow it up next time with the finishing touches. Dogs of all ages and all natural retrieving desires can…

HELL IS NOT HOT. IT’S A PLACE where the freezing wind blows hard enough to keep your dreams just out of reach. For three straight days, the winds blew 70-plus mph, and we were shore-bound, duckless, and desperate for a chance to chase king eiders on the seas surrounding St. Paul Island. On the very last day, the winds dropped to 40 and the seas were still massive but more organized, so we decided to go for it in the pre-dawn light. Now we were paying the price, trying to get back into port after the hunt, riding up and down mountainous swells at the narrow entrance to one of the nastiest harbors featured on the “Deadliest Catch” TV show, in the middle of the Bering Sea. It’s a spot…

David Hart’s article, “Mentors Matter Most” really caught my attention. I coordinate DU Canada’s Waterfowling Heritage Program, which encompasses youth and adult-mentored hunts. I found it interesting to compare some of the U.S. programs described in the article with the ones DUC organizes. In 2011, DUC and our partners in Manitoba conducted a survey of past participants of the mentored hunt program. Of those who responded, 75.5 percent had not hunted waterfowl before the event and 76 percent continued to hunt waterfowl after the program. We found when a new person is recruited, they often introduce a friend or family member to hunting. Fifty-eight percent of participants introduced an average of 2.5 new people to waterfowling. And if a parent takes part in an adult-mentored hunt, they are more likely…

MORE AK ROYALTY Dust off your Emperor goose decoys Alaskans, the season is back! For the first time since 1986, Alaska residents will be able to hunt Emperors, which look similar to a blue-phase snow. There was a spring season this year and ‘fowlers will be able to shoot one a day until set harvest numbers are met this fall. The species is thought to mainly stick within the state of Alaska, but last year we spotted a small flock in the Prairie Pothole Region. Before you shout BS, we were standing in between two veteran biologists, who pointed out a smoke-phase hen turkey and albino buffalo on the same trip. Honest! FAMED NAME CHANGE You’re probably a big deal if you get the most famous of public-land timber holes…

You should see improvements during the first few sessions, until pup walks at heel for longer periods of time. CONTROL IS THE key to properly finishing a great gun dog, and with that in mind, you need to make sure your retriever can heel on command. To get started, put pup on a slip lead, line him up with your left leg, and position the dog between you and a barrier such as a wall, fence—any object that will limit pup’s movement to the left. Get pup’s attention, and when he looks at you give the sit command. Wait a few seconds, then get pup’s attention again, and give the command “heel.” Move your left foot forward while giving the pup a slight tug with the slip lead. He should…

THERE YOU ARE, TIED UP TO the dock, yanking on the outboard’s pull cord while everyone is settling into the blind. Or maybe you’re the guy puttering across a choppy lake in an overloaded, undersized boat. Admit it: No one wants to hunt with you because you’re the guy with an unreliable motor and unsafe boat. Don’t fret. There’s a new crop of duck sleds and monster motors that will get you to the birds reliably, safely and quickly. Big, beefy outboards that can push a barge up the Mississippi, sea-worthy boats large enough for you and a half-dozen buddies, light, compact, mud motors that sail across gumbo, timber-bruising boats and stealthy, feather-light, one-man sneak boats... there’s something for every style of hunting. BOATS GO DEVIL 18X60 Big, wide, stable…

OUR REGULAR DUCK and goose seasons had closed but my lust for the sport was still strong, so a buddy and I signed on for a February snow goose hunt with a guide who billed himself as Gus The Goose Guy, Inc. Three weeks later, we sat in a motel room in western Kansas listening to Gus give us the standard night-before-the-hunt pep talk. As he lounged on our bed, propped on one elbow and liberally sampling our whiskey, he expounded on the fantastic hunt that awaited us. At 6 a.m. we met Gus at the town café for the breakfast buffet. Aside from a few other sleepy-eyed goose hunters, the only other customers were farmers. A faded “Welcome Hunters” banner drooped along one wall above a John Deere calendar…

We're going to be piling hunters on top of each other. SPEND A FEW days on Bayou Meto or any other green timber public hunting area in Arkansas and you probably won’t notice. Who can blame you? You’ll be too busy craning your neck as you watch flock after flock of mallards skim the treetops. For guys like Mickey Graham, though, it’s obvious. “Most of the red oaks are gone. There are still some places that have them, but mostly, it’s nothing but junk trees everywhere,” says Graham, who has been hunting Arkansas’ green timber wildlife management areas for over 50 years. “I saw it happening a long time ago.” “It” is the gradual, yet dramatic change to the forests of the state’s greentree reservoirs, those public hunting areas that…

JEFF HRADEK DECIDED to ring in the New Year with a little Ohio public-land hunting. The day was off to a good start when he and his companions had five ducks in the boat by 9:30, just as the geese started flying like crazy. “They were coming out of the refuge and we let a lot go by at first,” he said. “They were flying right over the decoys but weren’t interested in landing on water as they were going out to feed.” Realizing this, the hunters decided to let them have it when the next group of birds came over. Hradek had barely emptied his gun, killing one bird before the next group came by. “My shell belt was frozen and all I could get out was one shell,”…

JERRY SIMMONS IS a dog trainer who has hunted North Carolina's coastline since he was a teenager, though he has recently focused on the vast waters of Pamlico Sound. Simmons built this boat blind between dog training sessions and actually hunts over hand-painted decoys he carved from Tupelo. He also makes swan decoys, using the canvas-over-wire methods developed along NC’s Outer Banks. “Using the canvas to make the swan decoys gave me the idea of using canvas for the wind-blockers of a boat blind,” he said. “It is durable and much less expensive.” Simmons has access to some wooden shore blinds on Pamlico, but often prefers to hunt from his boat blind. “Sometimes the ducks become wary of those permanent blinds,” he said. “You are also at the mercy of…

PULL YOUR WEIGHT Sick of trying to cram all your buddies in that four-seat side-by-side? Well, if you’re transporting a small family to the blind, try the six-man Yamaha Viking VI EPS. The 2017 version is equipped with a more rugged chassis and outfitted with additional sound-dampening and engine-mounted torque rod so you don’t spook every mallard in the marsh. A reinforced steel cargo bed incorporates mounting points on the bed rails, plus the assist-dump bed can pack 600 pounds of gear. The two-inch hitch is rated to pull 1,500 pounds. $13,999 (start) | yamahamotorsports.com OLD MEETS NEW John Browning’s A-5 continues its evolution. Now duck hunters can get the ol’ hump back in a Cerakote Burnt Bronze/Mossy Oak Shadow Grass Blades finish, tricked out with a Briley…

“We had an ice storm so bad the university closed for a month. We duck hunted every single day… THE HUNTING WAS TOUGH, TO put it mildly, with stale January birds and still, sunny, Mississippi skies. Even the stunning drake late-season spoonbills were ignoring or even flaring from our purring and pleading with the classic Yentzen calls each morning, despite the trademark soft and smooth sounds from the time-tested wooden barrels. We scratched down a few birds and even the odd specklebelly, but what action was to be had was over quickly. Lucky for attendees of Charlie Holder’s annual Sure-Shot industry hunt, as always, Holder had plenty other action lined up at Mallard Manor in the central part of the state. Like summer camp for big kids, we spent hours…