Posted By:
Ray-Sands
Field Editor
Cape – Atlantic County 05-30-2004 21:30
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – Over 70 Degrees
Gosling, goslings and more goslings…..Greeting from the flat lands down Jersey. Yes, they are every place you look again this year. From mud holes off the GSPW ramps to the Parks and drainage holes, family groups are fertilizing the state. This week I have seen them the size of your fist to almost ready to fly. So the dilemma persists, how to get the buggers with all the development and safe zones? Scouting? Seems to be the only answer, but with all the safe havens and old timers that know the game and the gun, their numbers never seem to go down – only up. There is already talk, that they have now become so much of a nuisance to people of influence (not the hunting population) that the state will have a hand in “culling” the population. If you hear of it ….drop me a line from who and in what area of the state … please. Well time to get some flatfish for the pan, seems the stripers have moved on. Always out there…
Posted By:
tsiwarski
Guest
04-20-2004 13:18
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BE A PART OF A WATERFOWL STUDY
My name is Tom Siwarski and I am currently a graduate student at LSU working on my masters degree in waterfowl biology. I also live and die for waterfowl hunting. I am looking for some help from hunters on my project. My project is basically looking at determining age by differences in tail molt. I am looking at mallards, pintails, gadwalls, lesser scaup, redheads, and ring-necks. I have been absolutely thrilled with the help that I have received by hunters so far. It is awesome to see how many guys are willing to help out in order to contribute to science that will enable us to keep healthy populations of ducks into the future. I don’t know how many guys told me “anything to help the ducks.” Last year hunters saved me approximately 1000 carcasses!!! This kind of willingness to contribute made me proud to say I was a waterfowl hunter. I basically need to look at a lot of duck carcasses that are killed through out the hunting season. I would need intact birds except for the breast meat, they can still be breasted. I just need the internal organs and feathers still intact. I would need the ducks frozen until I have them shipped to me (my budget covers this) or until I can stop by and pick them up. If you are interested in being a part of this project or just want to talk about details of the project or duck hunting drop me an email.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Tom Siwarski
tsiwarski@hotmail.com
Posted By:
Ray-Sands
Field Editor
McNamara\\\’s WMA 03-13-2004 13:59
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – 45-50 Degrees
Greetings from the flat lands down Jersey. Out and about, spring migration back north has started. A drive through McNamara’s WMA in Tuckahoe with the camera and telephoto was a great trip. Over 1K birds in the middle impoundment. Sprig, GWing teal, BWing teal (you can actually see drakes with their dark heads and white crescent), Mallards, Blacks and Grays. Have to go on the early side before they get spooked out by the tourists. Canadas are already sitting a nest on the far side of the west impoundment.
[Edited By Ray-Sands on 2004-03-13 14:00]
Posted By:
Ray-Sands
Field Editor
Southern Winter Canada Zone 02-15-2004 20:55
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – 35-40 Degrees
Greetings from down Jersey! Hard to believe season is at end. The changing weather and goose feeding patterns had me holding the bag for a place to gun last day. Chores took me out of the normal routine Thursday and I happened to go by a field that never holds geese. Never a cover crop, only disked sand from September to April. Well the thaw had created an acre pond in a low spot and the geese had piled in to the tune of 2K. Permission to gun was no problem for the farmer and he himself commented that he couldn’t remember when geese used his fields. So Saturday there we were 5am and set by 6am. 6:30, 7:00, 7:30 and not a honk let alone a goose. My gunning partners made several comments inquiring if I had drank my breakfast or had been on some type of heavy medication Thursday or that maybe since there had never been geese in the field ever before that maybe I should had taken a hint. Well 8:00 they all were coming in at once! Pic up on editor’s page. Well by 8:30 it was over and the three of us had 15 geese on the ground with +50 empty hulls – talk about flock shooting and not hitting anything. Glad it was last day because we educated them and humbled ourselves. Now to chase the white geese or find turkey – the turkey may win out – more predictable.
Posted By:
Greenhound
Web Member
02-12-2004 03:00
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Bobby PM me.
Jon
Posted By:
Ray-Sands
Field Editor
Southern Winter Canada Zone 02-07-2004 20:01
Cloudy, High Winds – 40-45 Degrees
Greetings from the flatlands down Jersey! Well the mud was only ankle deep today and still frozen underneath. Limited by 8am – didn’t want to haul all the white stools through the mud and set the (40) dozen rig – that was a mistake. Snows were on the move with the thaw. We had two dozen white shells just up wind from the Canada rig. That was enough for the snows to stall at 90 yards and look but not to set in. We saw many large flocks of black geese high and moving north. With food and open water available, next week will be a completely different scenario to figure out before season ends! Never easy with these resident geese changing with the late season weather patterns.
[Edited By Ray-Sands on 2004-02-07 20:02]
Posted By:
Ray-Sands
Field Editor
Southern Winter Canada Zone 02-06-2004 19:03
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – 30-34 Degrees – Ice
Greetings from the flatlands down Jersey. Finally a break at work and a break in the weather. A gunning buddy had spied birds up in Plainfield so a scouting we went. They were roosting off Iona, Franklinville and Silver Lake. We couldn’t get permission to gun the field they wanted into (about 3K birds) but were able to secure permission in their flight path. We limited by 800am on both Wednesday and Thursday. The larger flocks made a bee line to the field they were using but we were able to suck in a couple of (15) or less groups both days. The birds we downed were an equal mix of residents and birds down from Ungava. The big flocks were +350 birds and you could see the tattered and torn wings of late season on a large number of them. Wise to the tricks the were, with the larger locals keeping them on course and not deviating from their destination. On Thursday two jags of +1K snows showed up but didn’t give our Canada rig a look. We’ll be back out in the muck (the frozen field was nice) hoping to make limit again Saturday. Finally out there to close the season.
[Edited By Ray-Sands on 2004-02-06 19:08]
Posted By:
Mike-Bard
Guest
Tuckerton, NJ Sportsman Show? 02-05-2004 14:40
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Is there a large Sportsman or waterfowler’s show in Tuckerton, NJ? If so and you have some info on it, could you please PM me. Thanks!
Posted By:
Diver-Down
Guest
Twin Rivers 01-13-2004 19:12
Cloudy, High Winds – 30-34 Degrees – Ice
Hunted the Shrewsbury River today with friend Bob. We had a tough time getting the boat in the water with the ice and low tide. Also had to break through some thick ice to get to open water. Although we did not see the amount of birds I expected to see we were able to pick away at them and ended up with a good varity of ducks including: blackduck, mallard, hoodie, buffie, broadie, brant, and gadwall. This next cold snap is really going to make it tough to finish out the season.
Diver-Down
Posted By:
clambo
Guest
Tuckerton 01-11-2004 20:27
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – 0-10 Degrees – Open Water
Hunted Little Egg Harbor. Bay relatively flat for 20mph winds. Very cold. -10 with wind chill.
Saw several huge flights of mallard and black trying to land in our decoys while we were setting up. Alas, no loaded gun. Bucketloads of Brant. Some Scaup flights working the center of the channel. And a couple of pintails that kept annoying us by being out of season.
Took 2 limits of Brant. We stuck around till the end of the day to try and get a black, but they were too wary in the bright sun of the afternoon. After getting our limit of Brant we could not keep them out of the decoys. Fun to watch.
