Brandon Yuchasz
Well-known member
You know we put all this time into boats, big spreads of decoys, planning, scouting, and the most memorable hunts are always the low tech ones for me. Last year it was a few woodies and mallards on a beaver pond before work. This year I think it was a few days ago.
Bird numbers are scarce right now up here. The Bluebills are gone and the bufflehead and few goldeneyes are in small groups a dozen or so and spread all over. A few days ago I did some scouting durring work and found where some buffies were feeding on a lake not to far from home.
The next morning I slept a little later then other hunts since all I needed to grab was the bag of 10 hand caved decoys, my gun and the dog. I drove out to the lake and set the decoys 3 buffies grouped together 3 goldeneyes off to the side and the remaining merganzer and bluebills spread out in between.
The dog and I tucked up against the rock breakwall and waited for the sun to come up. When light arrived so did the first bufflehead and the puppy was getting wet. 24 degrees out with a heavy west wind I was cold but the dog didn't seem to mind the work one bit. Over the next hour I shot a limit of bufflehead and nothing else. I tried for drakes but they were few and far between so I ended the day with half and half and two of the drakes were not very mature yet. Shooting was great the decoys were in tight and the birds didn't hesitate to come right in. Every bird was shot between 10 and 15 yards. One cripple made a nice run but Bella caught up to it and stuck with the diving bird until she managed to grab it.
What made it so fun was how simple it really was. I snapped a few pictures while I was out there.
Bird numbers are scarce right now up here. The Bluebills are gone and the bufflehead and few goldeneyes are in small groups a dozen or so and spread all over. A few days ago I did some scouting durring work and found where some buffies were feeding on a lake not to far from home.
The next morning I slept a little later then other hunts since all I needed to grab was the bag of 10 hand caved decoys, my gun and the dog. I drove out to the lake and set the decoys 3 buffies grouped together 3 goldeneyes off to the side and the remaining merganzer and bluebills spread out in between.
The dog and I tucked up against the rock breakwall and waited for the sun to come up. When light arrived so did the first bufflehead and the puppy was getting wet. 24 degrees out with a heavy west wind I was cold but the dog didn't seem to mind the work one bit. Over the next hour I shot a limit of bufflehead and nothing else. I tried for drakes but they were few and far between so I ended the day with half and half and two of the drakes were not very mature yet. Shooting was great the decoys were in tight and the birds didn't hesitate to come right in. Every bird was shot between 10 and 15 yards. One cripple made a nice run but Bella caught up to it and stuck with the diving bird until she managed to grab it.
What made it so fun was how simple it really was. I snapped a few pictures while I was out there.
Just found the GE I was talking about. This was a late Dec. hunt with USFWS and the middle "Hen" was actually a Juve. Drake. 