Posted By:
Michael-Bride
Field Editor
11-13-2003 04:51
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Well I wonder who will be hunting ducks this weekend. I’ve been going back and fourth between ducks and deer all week. But come saturday am.,unless they’re hardwater fishing in my bay, I believe I’ll be going to the lake to try to give the remaining ducks some company. I’m quite sure that where I hunt is still very much open water. And with the high wind expected over the next couple of days it will most likely stay that way for a while longer. I just can’t see me sitting on a frost covered stump, watching small rodents scurry around,when I could be out having a great day on the lake hunting ducks during our next wave of cold air. I guess some how I became a full blown duck hunting addict. I guess when the season is over I should join a support group and get myself some help. Nah I’ll just wait patiently for them trickle back in this spring so I can watch them through the lens of my video camera instead of the bead of my shotgun.
GOOD LUCK!! MIKE B…
Posted By:
Jerry-Nicholson
Web Member
11-11-2003 14:02
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Thats a real shame. Its a fairly big setback and attracts birds. I’m working on alternative small boat river hunting techniques that don’t require setbacks. So far I’m having some outstanding results. It might be that having a unique setup doesn’t flare birds who are used to The Army camped out in the marshes.
Posted By:
NJ Turnpike- Congestion & Heavy Smog 11-10-2003 13:22
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Jerry-
It must have been them. The shooting moved steadily northward towards us until it was happening 20 feet away from us. My buddy Jim and I were talking and 5 years ago you wouldn’t ever see anyone in the big Orford/Fairlee setback of which we speak. Now there’s competition on weekday mornings. I would encourage you to stay away. I know I will. Sorry you had no honks Sunday morning…
I don’t mean to bust on the whole River because I know there are still some wonderful spots. We’re just going to have to keep them on the down low. But the jig is up on that Orford spot.
[Edited By Rick-Higgerson on 2003-11-10 19:10]
Posted By:
Jerry-Nicholson
Web Member
Vt Cornfield next to NJTurnpike River 11-10-2003 12:35
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 10-20 Degrees – Open Water
Having read Rick’s report, I’m just as glad to have frozen my butt off in a cornfield instead of freezing my butt off and nearly having it shot off on the river!
To paraphrase my NH report (since I was in VT, after all…) I saw and heard nothing Sunday morning in a cornfield. Not a single honk all morning.
I did, however, hear a fairly enormous amount of shooting out on the river north of us. Sounds as if that might have been Rick’s fish duck shooting buddies 😉
Rick, were you in Orford/Fairlee? I hunted Reed’s Marsh once (with no success) and if that area is always like you described, I’ll continue to stay away!
Posted By:
Jerry-Nicholson
Web Member
Vt Cornfield next to NJTurnpike River 11-10-2003 12:07
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 10-20 Degrees – Open Water
Having read Rick’s report, I’m just as glad to have frozen my butt off in a cornfield instead of freezing my butt off and nearly having it shot off on the river!
To paraphrase my NH report (since I was in VT, after all…) I saw and heard nothing Sunday morning in a cornfield. Not a single honk all morning.
I did, however, hear a fairly enormous amount of shooting out on the river north of us. Sounds as if that might have been Rick’s fish duck shooting buddies 😉
Rick, were you in Orford/Fairlee? I hunted Reed’s Marsh once (with no success) and if that area is always like you described, I’ll continue to stay away!
Posted By:
11-09-2003 21:46
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Bubba B- YOU FOUND EACHOTHER! At least you didn’t drift into a flock of jackass. Thanks for the props, man. We’re coming your way soon…
Posted By:
Michael-Bride
Field Editor
Lake Champlain/East Creek 11-09-2003 16:51
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 10-20 Degrees – Open Water
11/9
Well as I said a few minutes ago. I found them. Or they found me. Whatever.Although it was very short lived,there was quite a few ducks moving on the lake this morning. A good steady flow until about 9:30. We managed to bust a few greenwings,a whistler and a black. One of the greenwings was a fully colored drake who in my opinion takes a close second only to a woodie drake as being one of the more handsome birds flying. We had some large mixed flocks of mallards and blacks working but just not totally impressed with our spread. We were also buzzed by the full aray of divers. Ringnecks,Buffies,Goldies,some Mergs but no Bluebills. All in all a good hunt but sadly the end of my three day weekends. I’m planing on duck hunting saturday and sunday much to my fathers frustration. He really wants me to chase deer but I don’t think I can tear myself away. There is almost nothing I would rather do than hunt ducks and the season is flying by faster than a pintail with the wind on it’s back.
Good luck!! Bubba…
Posted By:
Michael-Bride
Field Editor
Lake Champlain/East Creek 11-09-2003 15:34
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 10-20 Degrees – Open Water
Well I was going to start this post out differently. But after reading Rick’s post I just have to put my two cents in. In my opinion what happened to you Rick is a perfect example of how some people have absolutely no class. I’m cercainly not saying jump shooting or floating a body of water is wrong. But if thats your way of hunting just do so in a manner not to interfere with somebody else. Saying nothing about your safety. To put someone else in harms way, for any reason,is foolish. But just to shoot a couple of birds, that aren’t even regarded as table fare,is idiotic. These are the type of things that give an otherwise great sport a big black eye. Just a little more fuel for the fire of an ever popular anti-hunter trend. If you’re looking for something fun to do with a shotgun buy a box of clay targets or shoot some problem pidgeons at the local farm. It sounds to me like some folks still need to pass hunter ethics 101. At any rate thats my rant.I’ll post my hunt later. But I’m sure it suffer for lack of excitement by comparison.But I found them.
Good luck!! Mike B…
Posted By:
11-09-2003 14:11
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THE CONNECTICUT RIVER IS NOW THE NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE OF WATERFOWLING.
[Edited By Rick-Higgerson on 2003-11-09 14:12]
Posted By:
CT River North…The Horror, The Horror 11-09-2003 14:07
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – 10-20 Degrees – Open Water
It’s days like today when waterfowling really gives me that special feeling that I find in no other aspect of my life. That special combined feeling of complete ineptitude, absolute terror and abject failure. After scrapping the original flight plan that we filed due to time constraints, a plan that would have taken us over to the Lake, Team Madhouse took to the Conn flyway this morning with a big steaming bowl of hopefulness and very little else- no plan, no clue, wrong spread and a boat with, can you guess… NO GAS. Three minutes after an on-time departure into the 10 degree pre-dawn from the ramp under a full moon, black beauty, at a rare, early morning full-throttle began to sputter and cough. A quick read of the recently and “professionally” installed console fuel gauge indicated a full tank. Too cold? Never. Black Beauty starts and runs at sub-zero temperatures. Spent fuel pump? Choked the engine, restarted. Sputter, cough. Repeat. Repeat several more times. Now a quarter to half mile from the ramp, out come the paddles. Ever paddle a fully loaded, 1200 pound boat upstream, against the current? It’s really good excercise. After an hour, countless verses of “Old Man River” an extended discussion on the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and heated debate over whether or not there was anyone within a 50 mile radius with a VHF radio on, we made it back to the ramp. Now able to lift the blind over the tank gauge (the fuel tank on the Lund Alaskan is a built-in) we confirm that the tank is indeed bone dry. Off to the Citgo. As the entire boat is covered in a layer of ice, including the gas tank cover, I’m able to rip a nice large gash into my right thumb to match last week’s slice in my left thumb. Lots of frozen blood on the pop-up blind. Now the great debate: back to the ramp or try and rustle up a Sunday morning handle of Bourbon, recline the seats in the truck and get four or five more hours of sleep? Being true waterfowlers and Team Madhouse members we head back to the ramp. A bluebird day, bright sun but still extremely cold with a brisk wind. Arctic boat ride. To the marsh (no plan, hence back to the same marsh I swore myself off of last hunt I posted) which amazingly enough seems to be holding lots of birds and set up the spread.
Now here’s where the story get’s really good. A few birds are flying, we work a group of four mallards, lots of diver activity and have a family of mergs giving our spread some life when low and behold a canoe enters the mouth of the swamp and begins to head straight for us. We think it’s got to be Fish and Game coming in for a quick check up. But no F&G is going to be paddling a canoe in ten degree weather, let alone without a PFD on. Right? Never the less, the canoe heads right for us (our boat is fully grassed but come on, we’re not invisible) rounds the edge of our spread, turns in at us, our dog starts to whine (dog is also out of boat on shore just off to the side of the canoe’s line of fire), we’re looking on in amazement, jaws dropping inch by inch, when Leroy, the bow man in the canoe swings on the mergs in the spread, we begin screaming “NO, NO, NO!!!” he fires, his shot string pelting out across our decoys and caps one of the mergansers. Stunned silence on our part. Tucker makes a text book retrieve to the hand of Leroy. Wondering now what the proper response is to this incredible and hideous behavior. Also wondering whether or not these two hill jacks in the canoe might swing on us and go for the boat. “Hey man, those were mergansers,” is all I’m able to muster. “Yeah, but they’re fun to shoot,” is the response from Leroy’s friend in the stern. At this point, it looks like my friend Jim is considering punching two or three holes worth of heavi #4’s in the canoe. Leroy- “We’ll cut across the River and see if we can scare some more birds up.” Scare some more birds up? How’s ’bout scare some more of your fellow hunters? Look, I don’t care if you want to shoot mergies- that’s your choice. But out of someone else’s spread? Shooting into their decoys? Are you kidding me? I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life. Jim says to me- “Try that on the Gallatin or down in Loozyana- that kind of sh*t would get you killed.” On the way back up the River after picking up the spread, we saw them coming back downstream. We put up another mergie that was out in the channel just before we got near them and these two meat heads got up on the merg and took shots DIRECTLY OVER OUR HEADS. Did we see many ducks, any geese? Shoot anything today? Does it matter? Do we feel like waterfowling anymore? If this is what it’s come down to you might look for my boat, dog and 300+ decoys on e-bay.
[Edited By Rick-Higgerson on 2003-11-09 14:25]
