seafood special

this past weekend i went up to the panhandle to stay and hunt with my friend barry. he has been shooting redheads and buffleheads all season long and i have never shot either. he invited me up for a couple days to hunt. i havent shot many ducks this season and that curse seemed to follow me to north florida. the large number of ducks he had been shooting disappeared the day i showed up. despite only shooting a few ducks i had a great time. i was able to check two ducks off of my bucket list, a beautiful full plumed drake bufflehead and a common merganser. i also shot a nice drake scaup, saw barry shoot a full plumed redhead that decoyed perfectly, hunt in the salt for the first time, harvest fresh oysters while hunting then grill and eat them that same night, eat delicious meals cooked by barrys wife jesse and best of all spend a lot of time with a good friend that i hadnt seen in a few years. big thanks to barry and jesse for putting me up for the weekend and feeding me so well!

new(old) split cane

bobby gave me another split cane fly rod he refurbished for christmas this year. very nice of him. i cant wait to try it out on the north carolina trout. i used the last one he gave me this past spring the entire time we were in NC. thanks again, bobby!

christmas eve snipe

andrew and i went out this morning hoping to kill a duck or two but it wasnt in the cards. we settled for a few snipe. andrew and abirdie were pretty cold so they did a little cozying. after we finished i let birdie run around and chase swallows. think shes having fun? merry christmas everyone! we saw doug and his buddy out there. they only shot snipe as well.

the great white squirrel

well, i had another "one duck" day with a mottled that went down hard next to the weeds at first light but i could not find it. the real story is the white squirrel that dwight shot. i drove he and his pirogue out so that he wouldnt have to fight the wind. he shot 3 nice ducks and a very strange but beautiful piebald squirrel. it helps to be mobile! birdie and i had fun watching all the mottled ducks work. she wanted me to shoot another one but i was sure i would find the one when the sun came up. i looked forever but no luck.

just one

well they sprayed the lake so no more hydrilla, which means no more ducks. i did manage to get this one blue wing hen. i took a long shot at a pair of wigeon but no dice.

2 little 2 late

went out yesterday morning with bob and dwight. we got some nice birds including a nice hen pintail that dwight shot. i only shot 2 bluewings because i was waiting till the sun came up to choose quality birds despite having plenty of opportunities to shoot birds early. when the sun came up the wind shut off and the birds stopped flying. oh well, you live and learn. still had a great day in the marsh with two good friends.

still jumping the gun

it was a beautiful day to run the dogs on some quail. perfect temperature and a nice wind for the dogs to catch sent. birdie is doing great. she finds the birds fast, holds point like a champ, holds on wing, and retrieves to hand. she is not holding on shot. i think she did it once today. i need to focus most of my training with her on that one issue. ritter was fun to shoot over as always. the two dogs even ran together on a couple of birds. we ended the day with about 7 quail and a beautiful sunset.

duck of a life time

bob, ben, birdie, and i went down to sta 5 yesterday. we had tons of ducks working all morning. we didnt fire a shot till well after the sun was up trying to wait for big ducks. for some reason we couldnt get the big ducks to come near our spread although we had wigeon and pintails working all day. birdie did awesome and retrieved 8 of the 12 ducks we shot. she is breaking on the shot about 70% of the time and i need to break her of that. the highlight of the day was that bob shot a cinnamon teal drake. it was not full plumed but still a beautiful bird. we typically do not get cinnamon here on the east coast. they use the western flyway and show up mostly in mexico and california. most likely neither one of us will ever see another in our life time.

birdie on snipe

went back out to see if the ducks would show up and to put birdie on her first snipe. the ducks did not show but its good training for birdie to have to sit in the blind. after we saw that the ducks were a lost cause we walked up a few snipe. her first snipe retrieve was beautiful. she held after the shot and went straight to the bird when i sent her out. she brought it straight back and dropped it into my hand. the retrieve i caught on video was not as pretty but still not bad. she tried to take the bird to andrew who was to my left. she had such a great time out there bounding through the water and looking for birds.

thanksgiving 2010

today i went on my annual thanksgiving day hunt. my buddy andrew came along which was a fun change because every year previous i have hunted alone. we did not shoot any ducks but like many other times, it was not the ducks fault. we had no ducks at first light come into our spread. after the sun came up i decided to break out the big camera and get some close up shots of the hand carved decoys i had floated in our spread. thinking the morning was a bust i did not even bother to take my gun with me."beside, i would be standing in the middle of my decoys. what are the chances of ducks coming in?" wrong! while i was photographing my last decoy i heard a whistle. then another and another. i looked up from my viewfinder to see 10 black belly whistling ducks headed straight for me. if i had reached up i probably could have grabbed a few by the legs. i looked back at andrew and said "black bellies. shoot!" they slowly circled his head as he raised his gun. "CLICK!" he looked at his gun and chambered another round. "CLICK!" i heard a few unmentionable words from the blind. he ejected another live shell and "CLICK!" at this point i was almost running to the blind for my gun as the birds slowly flew off in the direction of another group of hunters. "BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM!" i saw 4 our 5 birds fall from the sky. i looked over at andrew who was dumbfounded. we looked his gun over and noticed that the firing pin had fallen out at some point. what a bust! i walked up a few snipe. could have shot a limit but i was tearing them up with the number 4 duck shot i had brought. tomorrow i will have number 7 with me and no hand carved decoys.

i used 3 different cameras to shoot the pics above. my iphone, my canon point and shoot, and my nikon slr. that was a first for me. can you tell which ones were shot with which camera?

10/11 opening weekend

well opening weekend has come and gone. i scouted thursday and friday. found thousands of ringers and a few puddle ducks. saturday the wind died and the ringers were nowhere to be found. shot a few ducks and should have hit more. tons of woodies working on saturday and plenty of ringers working the decoys on sunday but always about 80 yards out. got to hunt with two friends, dwight and ed. had a blast with both of them!