Innehållsförteckning för November 2021 från Wildfowl

INGREDIENTS  (6 SERVINGS) Roux: 2 cups flour 1 cup sunflower oil Add following spices once browned: 1 tablespoons gumbo file (powdered sassafras leaves) 1 tablespoons paprika 1 tablespoons chili powder 1 tablespoons dry ground thyme 1 tablespoons oregano 1 tablespoons kosher salt 1 tablespoons black pepper 1 tablespoons onion powder 2 tablespoons freshly minced garlic For extra spice (optional) 1 table spoons chili flakes 1 tablespoon cayenne Meats: 2-1/4 pounds wild fowl legs, or a combo of legs and other game Liquids: 8 cups chicken stock (mixed use) 1-3/4 cups tomato juice 3/4 cup clam juice Rice: 1 cup jasmine rice 1-1/3 cups cold water GUMBO IS A spicy stew that hails from Louisiana and is guaranteed to stick to your ribs and keep you warm during those long, cold…

AROUND LUNCHTIME ON a clear, calm afternoon in December 2020, Bill Lowen launched his boat into the Great Miami River near its confluence with the Ohio River. Running a few miles, he flushed a bunch of ducks from their resting place. Along for the hunt was his 9-year-old son, Fisher, 12-year-old daughter, Nevaeh, wife, Jennifer and his yellow Lab, Sadie. "The river was high and I busted about 50 mallards, black ducks and gadwalls from a corner," he said. "The temperature was around 28 degrees, but it was one of those afternoons with bluebird skies and felt warm because it was sunny. It was one of the first hunts where my son and daughter went with me and I was also in the same place where I shot my first…

THE BAY LAY quiet before clear shooting light. Streaks of sun were just peeking out from the eastern horizon, the day soon to begin. Lightly bobbing decoys moved on long lines laid out in the boat’s front, a ready retriever scanned the sky. A wood duck flight squealed their way across the point, a sure sign that a new day was coming in fast. Minutes passed and the hunters could see the divers trading back and forth out front. Soon a flock noticed the decoys and swung in for a look. They were big ducks, long and fast, cutting the unmistakable canvasback profile. Another Alabama sunrise was about to pay off with bull cans in the bag. Jackson County on the lake's north side is ranked 1st in waterfowl harvest…

Scotty Lago is a dynamic, much-loved snowboarder and hunter who is the 2004 quarter-pipe world champ, and now, he’s an ambassador for FORLOH Technical Hunting Apparel. He famously took the Olympic podium with Shawn White in 2010, winning the bronze at the Vancouver Games. Lago hail-calls from New Hampshire and lives in Southampton on the Massachusetts border close to the ocean. A waterfowler to the bone, he wrings the most ducks and geese possible out of his Atlantic Flyway home base and travels often to chase feathers across the flyways before the snow falls. He finds many comparisons between hunting and his elite sports career, although nobody has broken 30 bones en route to an Olympic duck hunting medal. He was at home in New Hampshire prepping for both seasons…

MOST VETERAN WATERFOWLERS dream of bagging a banded bird. Some go for years, others careers of hunting without doing so; and some enjoy beginner’s luck. The notion had never even occurred to Blake Jackson as he headed to Arkansas with a group of work colleagues for just his second ever waterfowl hunt. The initial target for the two-day expedition was ducks, but the group decided to switch things up on the final evening and enjoy a guided goose hunt. It would be Jackson’s first, and possibly most memorable. It was a warm evening with clear, sunny skies when Jackson and his colleagues settled into their coffin blinds and prepared for action. Despite less than favorable fowling weather, the birds worked well and by 3:45 p.m., Jackson soon had his first…

GEAR MAKES THE waterfowl world go round, and a quick gear purchase can quickly turn a sub-par season into a great one. We know it’s hard to stay on top of quality products when you’re spending every free minute in the fields, marshes, and swamps. Don’t fret. Give these items a read and get that Christmas list going right away. ■ RIG ‘EM RIGHT NITRO DELUXE FLOATING GUN CASE Blanketed in Gore Optifade Marsh, this beast is a proven fortress It is fitted with all the bells and whistles that make a waterfowl gun case great, like a tough, durable outer shell with rigid EVA protection at the stock, action, and barrel. The full-length zipper is rainproof, and the sizeable pocket is a solid locale for storing additional gear. Also…

IT WAS A good omen . The effluent coming out of the stack at the Michigan Sugar Beet plant in Sebewaing overlooking Saginaw Bay was trailing straight up toward the sky. Guide Mike Martin admitted he hadn’t seen very many days like this in the fall of 2020. “It’s been blowing for about three weeks straight,” he bemoaned. “It’s nice to finally see some decent weather.” Hunters Kyle Treadwell, Bruce DeShano and myself seconded the observation as we readied our gear at the boat ramp and loaded it aboard Martin’s 621 Ranger for the 13-mile ride to the middle of the bay. Temperatures the night before had dipped into the low twenties and a skim of ice over the channel crackled and tinkled like broken glass at our intrusion leading…

It is expected from north to south and east to west that ducks will blow past dry areas. DUCK NUMBERS EBB and flow, and duck hunters are accustomed to years when production is low. The big problem: Production, in general, has been down for several years, and due to a pair of severe droughts that plagued the U.S. and Canada in 2021, a poor crop of juveniles is likely. According to DU Director of Conservation Planning, Dr. Mark Petrie, a pair of droughts hammered duck production during the summer of 2021, and hunters should know that both droughts will directly impact duck numbers as well as how ducks use different flyways. "The main drought," Petrie said, "was the drought that hit the Canadian and U.S. prairies. This is thought to…

IF YOU’RE LUCKY, your duck dog will live long enough to experience everyday aches and pains associated with old age. If you’re really lucky, your dog will avoid this daily discomfort until it has taken a dozen laps around the sun and is truly old. But not everyone gets lucky, and it’s pretty common for dogs that have just recently left middle age behind to start moving slowly and exhibiting some discomfort. This is hard to watch, but often, inevitable. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t options for addressing low-level pain in our retrievers, because there are. But first, according to Lead Veterinarian for Merrick Pet Care RuthAnn Lobos, you should get your retriever to a professional to assess what kind of pain your dog is actually in. “It’s…

IT’S 1950'S CALIFORNIA with lots of white-fronted geese, alias specklebelly or just specks because of their beautifully white and black-barred breasts. They are probably somewhere in the Sacramento val ley, where rich agricultural lands offered food and water to wintering ducks and geese. Hunters and epicures agree that the speck is the best-eating goose of the lot The best piece of meat I have ever eaten was specklebelly breast in Louisiana cooked by a Cajun lady. The guns are Remington Sportsman 48s or 11-48s, and the fence of PSP [perforated steel plate] will be recognized by veterans of WWII, Korea or Vietnam. It was used as a quickly laid runway, road, or a roof over a bunker. Its uses were only restricted to the ingenuity of the users. The 1970s…

IF YOU’RE THE type of waterfowl-er who feeds your family by hunting 60 days per year, you probably already know by now that Hevi-Shot tungsten may not be the stuff for you because it’s not cheap. You can get 5 orders of Peking duck down at the local Chinese buffet for less. It’s expensive because there are very few tungsten mines in the world, and this ultra-dense metal is a commodity coveted for making everything from competitive darts to turbine blades and rocket nozzles. But the fact is it’s simply superior to steel, and even a fair margin better than lead bird shot. How? Imagine a tennis ball and a baseball both thrown 90mph by Pedro Martinez. Which one would you rather get beaned with? The tennis ball, of course,…

"The dog will quickly learn to leave the path and get his reward." MANY TRAINERS USED mowed paths with piles of dummies at the end to teach a dog lining skills. The problem is once the dog learns to run a path, if it comes upon a path during a trial or hunting situation, it will likely turn and follow the path. Why? Because the dog has learned that a path yields the reward, a dummy or a bird to retrieve. The simple remedy for this is to mow a path perpendicular to the end of the original path and then throw and/or place dummies or birds past the dead end, out into medium or high grass. Then cast the dog past the end of the path and into the…