Innehållsförteckning för November 2019 från Wildfowl

HE WAS LAUGHING softly, in his quiet demure English style, knowing life was good and there was really no thing to worry about. The big aluminum jon boat was stuck a bit in the awful black mud, due to the tide dropping after we did a quick and dirty South Texas duck hunt. Also stuck was my mom. An adoring son of this gor geous Greek woman, I was alarmed that she couldn’t move, up to her knees in the muck and sinking deeper. I grabbed and lifted her right out of her hip boots and swung her in the extra wide jon boat, then went to work on recovering her boots. “Dad, mom was really stuck,” I said. He paid no attention, and was just happy, sorting through all…

1 HUNTER Rick Twist Rogers AR BAND # 2167 07004 SPECIES Mallard (D) BANDED: 09/21/2018 LOCATION: Near Webster, SD RECOVERED: 01/12/2019 LOCATION: Neosho, KS 2 HUNTER: Greg Hartley, Point Pleasant, WV BAND #: 2047–85487 2047854 SPECIES: Mallard (D) BANDED: 09/02/2017 LOCATION: Near Aylmer, ON RECOVERED: 01/13/2019 LOCATION: 1 mi WSW of Point Pleasant, WV 3 HUNTER: John Lomonaco, Darby, MT BAND #: 1096-70838 SPECIES: Northern Pintail (D) BANDED: 08/19/2008 LOCATION: 24 NNE Ft. Norman, NT RECOVERED: 01/12/2019 LOCATION: Obregon, Sonora, Mexico 4 HUNTER: Preston Gembica, Silver Creek, NE BAND #: 1188-45629 SPECIES: Canada Goose BANDED: 06/16/16 LOCATION: Kennewick, WA RECOVERED: 12/30/2017 LOCATION: Silver Creek, NE COMMENTS: Shot this bird a day before my 16th birthday. 5 HUNTER Austin Hosick Vandalia IL BAND # 1137 18333 SPECIES Lesser Snow Goose (F)…

THE LAST DAY of the season, and geese were piling into a pond like ants at a picnic. New out-of-the-box was a Fabarm XLR5 Waterfowler clutched in my hands. It showed up just as I was leaving for Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and so taking a chance it would fit me and was ready to shoot, I brought it along. Was I glad I did, as the action was fast and furious. Fabarm has been a pretty good secret for a long time as it bounced from importer to importer. Fabarm stands for Fabbrica Bresciana di Armi—literally Fire Arms Made in Brescia—and was founded by the Galesi family in 1900. Over the years various individuals and companies imported Fabarm shotguns, including a subsidiary of British Aerospace, until finally being bought by…

Like Huckleberry Finn, I’m a child of the river. Nothing gets me out of my chair and up and going like a trip on a stream. Being a Senior Sportsman can make me think twice about certain activities in the outdoors. I can’t slog through a muddy plowed field like I used to, but I’ll still go if the geese are flying. But the river has a pull on this old Huckleberry. There’s nothing like riding the current, especially in the fall. Especially when the wood ducks are migrating. Nothing like it. Imagine those beautiful leaves falling and you drifting quietly downstream. Think of rounding a bend in the river and having a flock of Canadas blast off from the shoreline right in front of you. Can you see it?…

IF YOU’RE A Penn State alum, better sit down. The news broke late last year that the university’s venerable Outing Club—a 98-year-old student-led organization devoted to hikes, exploration, and, you know, “outing”—was getting the ax from university brass. Pointing to “the high risk of remote environments” and “poor cell-phone service,” the university has instructed the club to cut out the risky wilderness stuff and instead engage in activities within “previously vetted human constructions.” In other words, indoors. Under fluorescent lights. In safety. This announcement got the usual eye-rolls from the old fogeys who like to grumble about wimpy Millennials, of course, but it also raised the dander of some unexpected outdoor allies. Take Dr. Heather E. Neying, a biologist and former professor at the notoriously left-leaning Evergreen State College (motto:…

WITH OVER 50 hunting seasons on his resume, Thom Frank is a veteran waterfowler who has seen it all At least he thought so until an October trip he made to Alberta with hunting partner Art Dunn. The action was steady on their first outing and the duo shot a snow and a white-fronted goose from a flock of passing birds; all pretty routine up to that point. “When my friend went to retrieve the geese,” Frank recalled, “the white-front decided to try a quick getaway. With quick reflexes and Labrador instincts, he made a dive at the bird before it could escape. So often you’re sure some of those shots are lethal, then it turns out differently.” Frank was elated to see his white-front was banded, but even that…

DUCKS AND GEESE are fascinating creatures, but did you know the first waterfowl might have swallowed your beloved Lab? I doubt there is a hunter alive who hasn’t marveled at the brilliant colors of a wood duck drake or stood awestruck at the grace of a tundra swan winging overhead Waterfowl have adapted to live in every imaginable habitat from the pond by the 18th green of your local golf course to the fear some seas of the Bering Strait. In this article we re attempting to trace that evolutionary history as far back as possible, to find the proto duck, the most recent common ancestor of every modern waterfowl species. It’s more difficult than you might think. TYRANNOSAURUS QUACK To better understand where birds fit on the tree of…

MOST OF US THAT READ WATERFOWL ARTICLES in magazines dream of the wild hunts on massive grain fields teeming with thousands of geese and ducks. But what about the guy or gal that does not have a trailer full of high-end decoys, access to thousand-acre fields, and cannot afford expensive calls? There are plenty of hunters out there itching to call in their own birds, and see wobbling gray and black bombers with feet down, and hear the grunt of the honkers as they cruise within range with cupped wings. All of us want to yell, “Take em!” as we bust out of our layouts, dropping geese. The good news is that any of us can live that dream with some planning and effort, even without access to big feeds…

GOOD NEWS, DUCK HUNTERS. Thanks to a bill introduced by Representative Cindy-Hyde Smith (R-MS), state wildlife agencies have the freedom to extend duck seasons until January 31. There is even better news for current and former members of the military. The bill (S. 2942) also allows states to set aside two extra days for veterans and active-duty military. Those days don’t count against the regular season framework and can be set as much as 14 days on either side of the established seasons. "It’s great for PR and looks like a state agency is doing something to increase participation but it will do nothing to bring in new hunters." “States will now have the option to extend the season a few more days, which can make a difference both for…

THE ROGERS FAMILY have always been duckaholics, and in the 1980s Chris Rogers decided to turn his passion into a profession. That’s when Chris decided to begin planting wild rice on their property in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and after a few years the Roger's clan decided they could develop a full-scale production center for native wetland seeds that would meet the demands of waterfowl managers, and River Refuge Seed Company was born. Since that time the Rogers family has built their native seed catalog to include several of the top offerings used by biologists and private land managers across the continent. During the evolution of River Refuge, Chris Rogers and his family began building waterfowl impoundments at a rapid rate. To date Chris has built over 100 duck ponds and…

SNOW BLOWN SIDEWAYS by a 40-knot wind pelted four Iowa hunters zipping along the Missouri River in Nebraska. Despite a thermometer reading in the single digits and bullet-like ice pellets blinding him, Nick Ballard, his father Bob, brother Austin and friend Bill Day were dead-set on hunting. After enduring 70-degree days shooting only green-winged teal, followed by weeks of colder weather that brought a migration of gadwalls, conditions were finally right for greenheads. “It was Dec. 6, 2018, and we had hunted every day for a month straight,” said Nick. “We set up the boat against some reeds and put out an ice eater. Normally, it takes 25 minutes to drive to the ramp, but that morning it took an hour. Then I drove the boat while everyone else hunkered…

SPOTLIGHTS FROM PASSENGER jets descending into New York’s John F. Kennedy airport beam across the black morning sky as four men in an 18-foot Duckwater skim the shallow waters of Long Island’s Great South Bay. The plane traffic is constant, much like the brant flight soon will be after a quick decoy spread of the diminutive geese and a few black ducks are placed in front of a marsh island. Men hop out of the boat, jumping from a mud pile to the spongy earth of the island, unload gear and load shotguns, using a wooden “No Wake” sign pelted by steel shot from hunts past as a “blind.” Soon the sun crests the eastern horizon and sheds light upon the tidal marsh. Silhouettes of homes and boat docks dot…