Some end of season photos...2nd nieces first duck included.

Dave Hughes

Active member
Here are some photos from the end of the New Jersey Coastal Season.
Here is a nice pintail drake I got after the first of the year. We were hunting salt water for bufflehead and bluebills. This loan pintail comes across the cove we were set up in and tries to land in the Bufflehead decoys. He coasted in cupped up directly facing the boat and I folded him nicely with not too much damage. It was the first nice pintail drake I've shot so off to the taxidermist he went.
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I took a few vacation days the last week of the season. Here is a pic of the first Northern Shoveler I shot.
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Here is a picture of my niece Lauryn with her first duck, a Bufflehead hen. She fell a sleep in the boat so we decided to pick and leave. Upon dropping the sides to the boat and standing up to pull up the stakes we tie the boat off too, here she comes into the spread...I wake up Lauryn, hand her the gun and say shoot...she shoots half a sleep and hits the hen banking to the left and folds it. She had missed five nice drakes during the course of the hunt and was pretty discouraged. She was so excited and relieved to get her first duck in the last few seconds of her last day being able to hunt this year. She was pretty proud of herself and so were we.
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Here is my dad and his granddaughter at the end of the hunt.
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Here is a nice Red Breasted Merganser Drake I shot, also a first for me.
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A blackduck speculum shot I took...looks like a hybrid Mallard Black.
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Here was the last day of our hunt. It was the Tuesday of a nasty winter storm coming in. It was very windy so we stayed close to the ramp. A few hundred yards away. The wind continued to build while we hunted. We were only able to hunt for about 3 hours and had to leave due to the wind and waves getting too big for our liking. We only bagged a nice Drake Greater Scaup and a hen Buffy. We drove the 50 miles home in a decent snow storm. It was still worth it to get out.
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here is a nice drake buffy.
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A few brant decided to come sit in the decoys to ride out the storm. The season was over the week before for them, of course, that is how it works. They sat and swam around for about 20 minutes.
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Thanks for looking, Dave.
 
Nice job and wish the shovelors would stop be my way. One puddle I am yet to take in New England. The black's speculum looks normal to me and wouldn't pass muster as an other duck here. Seeing the brant in the bluebills brings back memories of six bird limits on scaup with big spreads of 100s of decoys that pulled the brant in on a string. They would pile in to a boat blind in open water with disregard for the out of place formation (boat).

Good job.
 
I sure enjoyed these pictures, Dave. Seeing your father and your niece with you was pure pleasure. Glad to see that you were so successful. I am still amazed when I see duck hunters with their decoy spread out and then see all those homes on the other side of the shoreline. Some day when you get that bull sprig back take a picture of it so we can have a look.
Al
 
Thanks guys. The season this year didn't really get good until the last several weeks. This year was mostly about getting my nieces and my daughter their first ducks in there first season. Accomplished that goal with my nieces my daughter needs some more work with the gun. I was glad to get them each out with their grandfather several times. ....will do Al. The taxi does a real nice job. I will have a brant coming back at the same time. I will post them both up. Thanks again guys, Dave.
 
Dave....looks like some pretty birds this year and CONGRATULATIONS to your niece. If she was half as exctatic as I was when I shot my first duck, then I bet she was just giddy all the way home.

Dani
 
Congrats. One thing I have found that helps new hunters is to try to get them to a skeet field a couple times or at least some clays in the back yard working in to some crossing shots. Of course a bufflehead isn't an easy target to hit most of the time anyway...
 
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