Ray
Well-known member
The pintails seemed to materialize out of the sun. We knew they were coming from the lower end of the lake, but were they coming from over the low ridge just to our right, or directly over our heads from behind? And they kept appearing out front.
If we looked up and right, we were blinded by the low sun as it continued to climb above the distant mountain. No birds could be seen against the glare of the bright blue sky. However, there they were as if some special effect movie trick was plotting them on the screen during their descent to the water.
Down they came in what appeared to be small groups of five to six, floating on locked wings in the stiff breeze. They were more than just the small flocks. They were one large flock of 50 or more birds.
As the lake surface filled up with birds, the following birds would peel off and come back around for a second attempt at a landing. The wind was straight out of the North, which put it at a slight angle to the shore and pushed the birds further away from us. Chris and I wished they would turn towards us in the wind rather than away and further out into the lake. Eventually a few birds did swing our way, and rather than climb with the wind at their backs they would stay low and fast over us or spin quickly over the decoys.
Those down wind shots were hell on the ammo supply. Behind them again! Then on the last shot a pintail crumbles and hits the muddy water just at the edge of the alkali crusted shoreline.
The morning had begun with a truck stop meeting well before O Dark thirty just off the interstate. I put my gear into Chris’s truck and parked the rental car under the bright lights next to the building. We headed north into the Great Basin. The road was pretty empty, but considering the hour this was no surprise. The narrow highway rolled out before us with long straight stretches up and over barren brushy ridges. A little coffee and easy conversation kept the darkness back.
As we came over a ridge we noticed a pickup had just pulled into the access road to the lower end of the lake. Chris commented that this is a good thing, but hoped that there was no body at the upper part of the lake. Another mile and we were pulling off into the dirt lot next to the weathered refuge sign; Pahranagat in white over the BLM brown painted wood. No lights in sight as far as we could see across the marsh.
Quickly we donned our waders and packed our gear in back packs. Being acclimated to cold weather I was concerned that I was over dressed for the walk out. A T-shirt, sweat shirt and a “breathable” EST pull over turned out to be one layer too many for this Alaskan in the desert in winter. The wind did cut into the skin of my neck in the cool darkness. As sweat started to drip down my brow I was reminded of an old back packing adage – if you’re cold put on a hat, if you’re hot take the hat off. The last half of the walk in I let the wind evaporate the sweat off my own bald pate, and arrived at the far shore of the lake not overly drenched.
Our arrival was not unnoticed in the pre dawn light as many birds launched up from the shore line as we broke through the tules. Chris off-loaded his giant decoy back pack next to the tule pile blind on the muddy shingle. As I shucked my own pack, I looked up at the vague pinkish purple dawn sky and just stood there gawking. There were a few hundred birds up there over the cove we were going to set up at. Further out over the main part of the lake there were more, maybe a thousand birds silhouetted against the dawn. The lake surface mirrored the dawn light and showed more birds still on the water as distant dark spots.
Chris had the decoys tossed out quickly while I pulled more tules from the shore line behind us to augment the pile Chris had spent the season building. The lake was down about 3 feet which left about 40 yards of alkali crusted mud between the desired cover and the water’s edge. Some sticks, and armfuls of tules piled up around them was all we needed to conceal our location from out front. Nothing concealed us from behind.
Shooting time arrived and it was still dark enough that I was somewhat concerned about being able to indentify what the birds were. Back home until late October the birds are either big brown ducks or little brown ducks. There are species limits here in the desert, and I have to think before dropping the hammer. However, the birds down here are more than just brown ducks. They already have their winter coats and are now working on the fancy details. The sprigs are now white and brown without the long sprig or the faint pink tint along the head. The green swoop on the drake wigeon is slightly muddy along the edges. The drake Redheads show small grey feathers poking through their rusty plumage. Of course at this time of the morning I don’t know any of this since I won’t have these birds in hand until later.
It was only a short time after settling down behind the tule pile before the birds came with the wind from the left, winging fast along the shore line. Chris is young and can jog through the mud with ease compared to my old heavy self. The dry mud near the water line is deeper and thicker than the wet mud out in the lake. Chris picks up the ducks and jogs back to the tule pile. The first shots of the morning and we have in hand a hen gadwall, a miniature green wing teal, and drake pintail. We both marvel at the diminutive size of the teal. It is not much bigger than a finch. We have seen quail larger.
We reload and there are more birds. These are larger birds than were in the last group, but in the dark I am still not sure what they are. One shot on the lowest bird in the flock and two birds fall then a third falls to Chris’s shot. Upon retrieval I learn that I have now filled my Redhead limit for the day with a mature drake and a young of the year drake still in gray feathers. It’s still early in the morning and dark with the sun behind the far mountain. I have to start thinking about my shots now. When I think about my shots I don’t hit much is what I know about my marksmanship skills.
Thus began the duck shooting which begat the duck missing. The split seconds of thinking “can I shoot that bird” combined with me pulling my head up off the stock to look at the bird resulted in many misses over or behind the birds. With all these birds around I was eventually presented with shots that did not require me to over think the shot.
As the sun rose the wind picked up and the birds flew higher or faster along the shore. We spent the few lulls in the flights to pile up more tules around us to hide from the birds that were coming from behind us, and from up wind directly to my left. As the shallow cove out front filled up with birds well beyond the decoys, birds that wanted in to the area were pushed towards us into the wind and made for easier shooting on a few occasions. There were some tough shots that required me to twist around to my left and then shoot over head. One of these Chubby Checker twisting shooting positions resulted in me falling backward off the marsh stool, laughing hysterically at my predicament as I lay in the mud.
Just before noon the birds lay down and stayed there. It was hot and sunny now with the wind still pushing hard from the north. Chris and I had nine birds between us and we both knew that we each should have had limits if we and the birds had worked better together. We did have some great shots: my double on the Redheads; a drake wigeon that came right into Chris’s side of the blind like it was on a string; a drake sprig that popped up out of nowhere in front of me over the decoys as we were watching several other flocks above him - I finally kept my head down and finished that bird without a volley. I was two birds short of a limit of seven by the time we called it a day. I took my last two shells out of the gun and pocketed them while thinking to myself that I have never shot more than a handful of shells in years of hunting in Alaska. Then again I have never had more than a handful of birds to shoot at either.
As we packed up and headed back to the truck I thought about what I had just experienced. We have a state refuge lake about this sized just 40 minutes outside Anchorage. You have to use a boat to get in to it from a slough or a river, both of which are heavily influenced by the tide. The Cook Inlet silt mud makes them even more dangerous during the tide swings. Yet even with these impediments the lake is over crowded with hunters.
Here, I had just spent the morning of a federal holiday hunting public land 90 miles away from two million people, and there were only six people on the marsh. If this marsh with this easy of access and numbers of birds was within 90 miles of Anchorage there would have been 500 people out there. They would have been parking on the highway blocking semi trucks on the narrow two lane black top.
The ride south and back towards civilization seemed quicker than the same drive in the darkness. The conversation flowed easier now that Chris and I were no longer strangers that shared an interest in water fowling.
I wanted to stay. I will come back to Pahranagat some day.
http://www.fws.gov/desertcomplex/pahranagat/
If we looked up and right, we were blinded by the low sun as it continued to climb above the distant mountain. No birds could be seen against the glare of the bright blue sky. However, there they were as if some special effect movie trick was plotting them on the screen during their descent to the water.
Down they came in what appeared to be small groups of five to six, floating on locked wings in the stiff breeze. They were more than just the small flocks. They were one large flock of 50 or more birds.
As the lake surface filled up with birds, the following birds would peel off and come back around for a second attempt at a landing. The wind was straight out of the North, which put it at a slight angle to the shore and pushed the birds further away from us. Chris and I wished they would turn towards us in the wind rather than away and further out into the lake. Eventually a few birds did swing our way, and rather than climb with the wind at their backs they would stay low and fast over us or spin quickly over the decoys.
Those down wind shots were hell on the ammo supply. Behind them again! Then on the last shot a pintail crumbles and hits the muddy water just at the edge of the alkali crusted shoreline.
The morning had begun with a truck stop meeting well before O Dark thirty just off the interstate. I put my gear into Chris’s truck and parked the rental car under the bright lights next to the building. We headed north into the Great Basin. The road was pretty empty, but considering the hour this was no surprise. The narrow highway rolled out before us with long straight stretches up and over barren brushy ridges. A little coffee and easy conversation kept the darkness back.
As we came over a ridge we noticed a pickup had just pulled into the access road to the lower end of the lake. Chris commented that this is a good thing, but hoped that there was no body at the upper part of the lake. Another mile and we were pulling off into the dirt lot next to the weathered refuge sign; Pahranagat in white over the BLM brown painted wood. No lights in sight as far as we could see across the marsh.
Quickly we donned our waders and packed our gear in back packs. Being acclimated to cold weather I was concerned that I was over dressed for the walk out. A T-shirt, sweat shirt and a “breathable” EST pull over turned out to be one layer too many for this Alaskan in the desert in winter. The wind did cut into the skin of my neck in the cool darkness. As sweat started to drip down my brow I was reminded of an old back packing adage – if you’re cold put on a hat, if you’re hot take the hat off. The last half of the walk in I let the wind evaporate the sweat off my own bald pate, and arrived at the far shore of the lake not overly drenched.
Our arrival was not unnoticed in the pre dawn light as many birds launched up from the shore line as we broke through the tules. Chris off-loaded his giant decoy back pack next to the tule pile blind on the muddy shingle. As I shucked my own pack, I looked up at the vague pinkish purple dawn sky and just stood there gawking. There were a few hundred birds up there over the cove we were going to set up at. Further out over the main part of the lake there were more, maybe a thousand birds silhouetted against the dawn. The lake surface mirrored the dawn light and showed more birds still on the water as distant dark spots.
Chris had the decoys tossed out quickly while I pulled more tules from the shore line behind us to augment the pile Chris had spent the season building. The lake was down about 3 feet which left about 40 yards of alkali crusted mud between the desired cover and the water’s edge. Some sticks, and armfuls of tules piled up around them was all we needed to conceal our location from out front. Nothing concealed us from behind.
Shooting time arrived and it was still dark enough that I was somewhat concerned about being able to indentify what the birds were. Back home until late October the birds are either big brown ducks or little brown ducks. There are species limits here in the desert, and I have to think before dropping the hammer. However, the birds down here are more than just brown ducks. They already have their winter coats and are now working on the fancy details. The sprigs are now white and brown without the long sprig or the faint pink tint along the head. The green swoop on the drake wigeon is slightly muddy along the edges. The drake Redheads show small grey feathers poking through their rusty plumage. Of course at this time of the morning I don’t know any of this since I won’t have these birds in hand until later.
It was only a short time after settling down behind the tule pile before the birds came with the wind from the left, winging fast along the shore line. Chris is young and can jog through the mud with ease compared to my old heavy self. The dry mud near the water line is deeper and thicker than the wet mud out in the lake. Chris picks up the ducks and jogs back to the tule pile. The first shots of the morning and we have in hand a hen gadwall, a miniature green wing teal, and drake pintail. We both marvel at the diminutive size of the teal. It is not much bigger than a finch. We have seen quail larger.
We reload and there are more birds. These are larger birds than were in the last group, but in the dark I am still not sure what they are. One shot on the lowest bird in the flock and two birds fall then a third falls to Chris’s shot. Upon retrieval I learn that I have now filled my Redhead limit for the day with a mature drake and a young of the year drake still in gray feathers. It’s still early in the morning and dark with the sun behind the far mountain. I have to start thinking about my shots now. When I think about my shots I don’t hit much is what I know about my marksmanship skills.
Thus began the duck shooting which begat the duck missing. The split seconds of thinking “can I shoot that bird” combined with me pulling my head up off the stock to look at the bird resulted in many misses over or behind the birds. With all these birds around I was eventually presented with shots that did not require me to over think the shot.
As the sun rose the wind picked up and the birds flew higher or faster along the shore. We spent the few lulls in the flights to pile up more tules around us to hide from the birds that were coming from behind us, and from up wind directly to my left. As the shallow cove out front filled up with birds well beyond the decoys, birds that wanted in to the area were pushed towards us into the wind and made for easier shooting on a few occasions. There were some tough shots that required me to twist around to my left and then shoot over head. One of these Chubby Checker twisting shooting positions resulted in me falling backward off the marsh stool, laughing hysterically at my predicament as I lay in the mud.
Just before noon the birds lay down and stayed there. It was hot and sunny now with the wind still pushing hard from the north. Chris and I had nine birds between us and we both knew that we each should have had limits if we and the birds had worked better together. We did have some great shots: my double on the Redheads; a drake wigeon that came right into Chris’s side of the blind like it was on a string; a drake sprig that popped up out of nowhere in front of me over the decoys as we were watching several other flocks above him - I finally kept my head down and finished that bird without a volley. I was two birds short of a limit of seven by the time we called it a day. I took my last two shells out of the gun and pocketed them while thinking to myself that I have never shot more than a handful of shells in years of hunting in Alaska. Then again I have never had more than a handful of birds to shoot at either.
As we packed up and headed back to the truck I thought about what I had just experienced. We have a state refuge lake about this sized just 40 minutes outside Anchorage. You have to use a boat to get in to it from a slough or a river, both of which are heavily influenced by the tide. The Cook Inlet silt mud makes them even more dangerous during the tide swings. Yet even with these impediments the lake is over crowded with hunters.
Here, I had just spent the morning of a federal holiday hunting public land 90 miles away from two million people, and there were only six people on the marsh. If this marsh with this easy of access and numbers of birds was within 90 miles of Anchorage there would have been 500 people out there. They would have been parking on the highway blocking semi trucks on the narrow two lane black top.
The ride south and back towards civilization seemed quicker than the same drive in the darkness. The conversation flowed easier now that Chris and I were no longer strangers that shared an interest in water fowling.
I wanted to stay. I will come back to Pahranagat some day.
http://www.fws.gov/desertcomplex/pahranagat/
