What a difference a few days makes! Yesterday morning, after dropping my son off at school, I headed to the launch. Drove through some snow and got there around 7:40. That launch was froze despite the gale force winds from the day before. From the launch the binoculars revealed what appeared to be open water out a ways. So I drove to the other launch and started getting ready, which entailed clearing piles of frozen driftwood and broken ice chunks out of the way. My friend met me there at 8:00 and we finished getting the boat ready. Headed out and realized that all the “open” water I thought I saw was slush ice from the heavy snows the day before. We drove around a bit and couldn’t find anywhere sheltered from the swells of Lake Ontario that was slush ice free. So we went back to the spot I originally wanted to hunt and did a few doughnuts to clear the ice away. Set out 5 strings of decoys, but before we could settle in we had to reposition 2 of the strings that got dragged by the ice. When we finally got the guns loaded, it was 10:00.
The weather was perfect for this spot; blowing SW at 10 – 15 mph and partly cloudy. Although we didn’t see many birds, the ones we saw all decoyed beautifully. In the two hours that we hunted, we had 3 separate flocks of broadbill and a pair of redhead drakes all come right into the decoys. I enjoyed watching the first flock of broadbill approach for a little too long before calling the shot. This resulted in some hurried, awkward shooting and missing from both of us. Luckily we redeemed ourselves on some of the subsequent birds so that Molly could get some work in (she really hates it when we miss). Then just before we packed it in, I looked up from my camp stove to see a lone goose locked up over the spread on my side. I was more than happy to collect the ingredients for some more corned goose.
At noon we started picking up; the ice had had its way with my decoys. Two 12-bird strings were being dragged by one sheet and the other two strings were being towed by another sheet. Luckily the mild winds gave us the luxury of time to untangle the decoys before hauling them all back into the boat. On the way in, the ramp was choked with ice chunks again for some fun navigation. We finally got the boat back on the trailer by 2:00.
It was a lot of work for a two hour hunt, but totally worth it to watch the broadbill decoy like that. Now today it’s blowing NW at 20 – 30 again, it blew my hat off as I stepped out the door to go to work this morning. To top it off these winds look like they may continue through the end of our season on Friday. I’m glad we were able to get a fun hunt in yesterday!
