Wednesday, January 02, 2008

a first




today quackbob and i decided to forgo his ocklawaha permit to try and bag a pintail or widgeon at merritt island. bad choice! we got there early and set up. 20 mins before "legal" teal were everywhere. we thought we were on our way to limitsville for sure. 5 mins before "legal" the birds completely disappeared. for the whole day i fired 4 shots at 2 birds. i did bag a young drake northern shoveler (spoonbill) which is a bird that i have never harvested before. its a good thing it wasnt a full plume drake because my taxidermy bill is starting to get up there. bob shot a hen green wing teal. live and learn. next time we will stick with the original plan. still had a ton of fun.

2 comments:

eric said...

Hey v.c.k. - I can totally relate to this. There are several large, shallow wild rice lakes with in 30 miles of my home here in MN. The ducks tend to fly to these lakes just after sunset to roost for the night. Then, just before legal shooting time in the morning, they head out en mass for points unknown. It's very frustrating but part of the game, I suppose. At least you had some shooting.

Also, to the great annoyance of my hunting partner, it took a long time for me to become proficient at identifying the Northern Shoveler at a distance. They're everywhere in North Dakota and can very quickly ruin a person's game bag.

"Why the #$%@ didn't you shoot at those Canvasbacks?!"

"I thought they were Spoonbills."

Thanks for another great post.

Anonymous said...

'Awesome hunting pictures...looks like ya'll are having great fun!! How about some new pictures of the Kirby Kids, too!!! :)

Mom