Shiawassee Kid

Since the mallards haven’t cooperated we just settled on hammering gadwals and wigeons (and any other species that felt the need to bomb our decoys). Tonight Dave and I absolutely had one of the best marsh hunts ever. It took longer to unload canoe, paddle to spot (about 70yrds) throw out decoys than it took to shoot 12 gaddies. Tanner got a workout as the water was belly deep. He got very little rest as we had birds down while he was still bringing the previous bird back like 3-4 times. This hunt made my week. Dave and I shot really well, the dog did absolutely awesome and we were loaded back up in the truck before it was even close to dark. great hunt by all standards.

This is the last night here at camp and Chris, Johnny and Steve are heading out in the morning. Dave V. and I are gonna hit our favorite hole in the morning and head out around noon or so.

so far after totaling ducks/geese/swans this week. In the past 7 days we have shot 192 ducks, 4 canadas, 1 snow, 3 swans. Dave and I will have a chance in the morning to extend that total another 12 more to bring it over 200. We probably woulda easily made that mark if Dave would have been here sunday and monday.

tailgate stack

crew, dogs and birds

just had to include this, Otto has the best poses.

Today we took it easy and cruised for swans and a few ducks. Chris’s crew had a swan down (we actually got to see it happen as we were driving up to them) at around 9:30am. After we left those guys we went about a square or two over to a big slough. We spotted 50 swans on the water in the upwind end and decided to push them up and setup hoping they would fly back into it later. About 45min after setup the lifted off the slough about a mile over and came back just as we had hoped. Flock of about 8 swans cruised over dave and he pulled a helluva shot (about 50-60yrds) broke a wing and brought it down hard. Tanner attempted to retrieve it but kept chasing/pushing it out farther into water which got deep. We eventually got it and Dave was one happy camper!!!! made the day for sure.

Evening we hunted another slough for ducks and finished out a limit of gaddy’s and wigeon (i accidently shot a shoveler)…..thought I could make the whole trip without shooting a shoveljunk. On our way back to the truck we passed a rockpile and tanner was up there sniffing on something hard…so i walked over and checked it out….it was the antler shed pictured below. Pretty solid rack, wish i could’ve found the other half.

johnny doing a trophy pose

5:30am this morning we started dragging about 10 dozen decoys into a tilled wheat field that Chris S. had scouted out the night before. After setup and much anticipation….the plan just never came together. Wind shifted off from North to Northeast and changed the flight line. Lots of ducks and geese this morning, just about a mile to our east. After shooting a few ducks we called it, left our stuff in the field and headed back for breakfast.

At about 1pm we decided to split up and do some pothole shooting from 1-5pm and then meet back at the layouts for evening hunt. Dave V. and I went to the same territory we did the night before and moved about a mile north on a small, shallow, weedy pothole. I had scouted it out last saturday and kicked about 100 gadwal off it and marked it on GPS then. This was first time back to it…we pulled in the driveway and gently drove back to the edge of it. It was 75yrds off the road. When I got about halfway to it, i noticed a bunch little duck heads staring at me through the weeds…hehe. I shifted in reverse and before I could backup they jumped up and vacated…about a 100+ gaddies. Dave and I quickly got our waders on and grabbed the guns, 24 deeks, spinner and the dog. 2hrs (4pm) dave finished the last bird off with a zinger of a blue wing teal, hell of a shot.

We met Chris and crew over at the field blinds to watch them jump shoot their last 5 ducks in a slough 100yrds in front of the layout blinds.

tanner retreived solid today. nice long retreives....using his nose and he even brought them all the way to heal. amazing day for Tanner.

crew holding todays smackdown

straps!

1:30pm Dave V. flew in today at Jamestown, after picking him up and hammering the local chinese joint we hoofed it back to our rent house and got the truck loaded with dogs and decoys. We made a trip 10 minutes south of town to a gaddy hole i found few days ago…parked on side of road, walked out 100yrds into the side of the hole and setup. 12 hotbuy decoys,  1 spinner. 45minutes later we were done.

Dave V. limit of gaddys and wigeon.

me holding the limit for the pic

hoody from tuesday

The rest of the crew went out marsh hunting today while I was picking dave up and they did just as good, even tagged a snow.

John next to their tuesday limit

Chris, Steve and Johns wad from today.

And here is some random pic’s from the rest of the trip. enjoy.

John hoggin the only good chair here.

Steve with his perfect sleeping beer holding form.

Chris dropped a pheasant as it flew over the highway. Made for easy recovery.

Nice Wigeon from one of our field shoots.

Little surf and turf.

here’s john doing some coot shooting. he was not very successful.

today we thought we had the gun cam thing figured out. new problems arose as batteries didn’t last as long cuz of the cold i think. we had some pretty cool wigeon flocks that came in low and fast and 3-5ft off ground. here’s a pair of mallards that we dropped. john on my left kills the left birds and chris on my right kills the right bird….i never fired as they folded as i was pullin trig.

Ok you gotta bear with me as i’m still figuring it out. I have 3 small videos I converted just to get it all figured out. Today while using it I had a couple issues as you will see when you watch them. Camera moved on me couple times, it flew off on second shot a couple times….tomorrow I will have it fastened better and I will try to leave gun on outside of blind to catch birds swinging and approaching. Not sure how i’m gonna do it but i’ll figure it out tomorrow. So for now, I just have these 3 small vids to give you a taste of it. In one of the vids you will see the camera land facing me and I reload my gun to get a shot on some geese hovering over us.

pair of drakes

pair of drakes w/ goose after.

nice flock, its too bad my camera shot off. we each dropped a bird out of it. I also did this one in a lower resolution, i’ll have it better tomorrow. Sound will be tweaked also….I had it on high setting today and it just grabbed way to much sound.

This morning was pleasant surprise. We scouted out the field, didn’t see a ton of birds but it was more than the last few days. After figuring out the logistics (a lot of trips with the quad) we got there early in case someone seen the same birds we did. 5:30 we started making trips with the quad ferrying our gear back and forth. By 7:15 we had 10 dozen decoys set and in our blinds. Super slow the first 45 minutes…Chris even asked “where are the birds”……20 minutes later we had a flock of 60 bear down on us and circle a few times…we got a couple to land and then opened up on them. We dropped 8 birds on the first flock. 7 drakes and a hen. Next batch came shortly after and we had them broadside at 10 yrds….about 30 birds…we dropped 4 wigeon (2 drakes, 2 hens) and 3 mallards. within 15 minutes we were sitting on 15 birds down. Next flock gave us 4 more mallards and then a pair came in and we dropped both drakes. then pretty much shot singles there on out to fill us out for the day.

20 mallards, 4 wigeon.

sunrise

nice wigeon

crew L-R: John, Steve and Chris

John, Steve and Me

Otto

Chris Smith and his buddy’s should be hitting the road right about now to make their way out here. Tomorrow we move into a rented house for a week and can really start chasing the birds. My license is on a 2-day hiatus so today I put some miles on the truck. One small mishap today….both dogs in back of truck and they like to be active participants in the ride….Otto body checked Tanner right outa the truck while coming up to a stop sign…good thing we were doing less than 20mph….anyways Tanner took a tumble but seems ok. Didn’t see much mallard activity today at all…but seen TONS AND TONS of gadwals. They are starting to flock up into bigger flocks, so maybe they are getting ready to move. Todays pics below.

bad focus but i finally caught a pintail in a slough and tried to back up to him when he booked it outa there.

this is for my buddy Phil. and the next pic.

:)

more ruddy's here than you will ever care to see.

beauty pic of a hen gaddy, just wish it was a drake.

probably one of the best pic's on the trip. she hung tight while i snapped a bunch...very surprised how long she stayed.