Some late season pics of Champlain hunts- more pics

John Bourbon

John Bourbon

Well-known member
Hello all. I haven't been on here much lately, too busy hunting and doing honey do stuff. Now that the Vt Season is over, I aim to catch up on my posting....The first pic is one that was taken on one of the, if the THE most epic goldeneye hunt I've ever been on. In the pic are board member Cheech Kehoe, my friend Shawn Giard, my brother Bob, who had flown up from Fla for this hunt, and another friend, Rob Hazen. We were all in white, and hunting over a minimalist decoy rig, maybe 15 or 16 decoys.

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Here's the view looking out...
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During the course of the hunt, someone, we think Cheech, killed a beautiful drake redhead. It is the only redhead I've seen in 25 years of hunting Champlain. Of course we all had to get our pics taken with it. Here is me and brother Bob with the redhead.
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More pics to come, as soon as I find them....
 
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Wow, John, brings up a lot of memories. Most of my all time favorite hunts have looked like yours. Can't get any better than GEs in the ice. We try to do at least one of those a year - usually the last weekend of our season when everything else is froze up.
 
Here is the obigatory dead bird pic from that day:
16 whistlers and 1 redhead. In the pic from left to right,
Shawn Giard, his boy Holdyn, brother Bob, me, Rob Hazen, and Cheech Kehoe.
 
Darned red X...I could see it when I was putting the post together...I'll fix it when I get home....Unless Cheech comes along and sees this and posts it....

John
 
Kudos to Bob for flying up from Florida for that hunt. That has to be a most memorable redhead that was shot.
Al
 
John

I tried to edit it, but you need to be logged into AOL to view, which I'd guess you were, hence it showed in the preview for you.

Chuck
 
John~

What great images!

Isn't it interesting how we design and build our specialized fowling vessels - and still have some great shoots just sitting still and not moving. And, there is something magical about donning the "white" and disappearing.

Have a Very Merry Christmas,

SJS
 
I am on it John...

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Here is the obigatory dead bird pic from that day:
16 whistlers and 1 redhead. In the pic from left to right,
Shawn Giard, his boy Holdyn, brother Bob, me, Rob Hazen, and Cheech Kehoe.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Cheech!

Steve - you are right, we plan, we spend, we build, and every now and then, a drop dead simple hunt comes along where everything goes just right, and you are struck by how cool the old ways can be!

And then when it involves Goldeneyes! ....really, what more can I say?

John
 
Here a few pics of a hunt on the last day of Vt's Lake Champlain zone. The big white puffy thing is a roof to a portable garage that Cheech owned, draped over his 18 foot Lund Alaska with blind. Thats me on the left, with Shawn Giard standing up on the right, and Rob Hazen is sitting, unseen, in the boat.

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We had a good day with quite the mixed bag. A snow goose, a mallard, a hoody and several goldeneyes. It was cold that day, around 15 degrees as I recall. We had to hook a strap from the rear of my truck to the front of his truck to get his boat and truck up the icy ramp.

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At one point a loon had swam unseen by us into the decoys and gotten hung up underwater in the decoy strings. His thrashing around caused several seconds of confusion on our part trying to figure out what was going in the decoys. In this pic he has just extricated hisself and gotten a few feet away from the decoys before we could get out phones out for a pic.
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Great photos--especially love the first one with all you lined up in front of that bluff.

And the mallard/snow/whistler mixed bag is great too.
 
Since you are shooting them in quantity, do you have any good goldeneye recipes?

I'm looking forward to the replies on this one.

I take the skinless breasts and thighs, soak in the fridge in several changes of water with some salt and vinegar added. I then cube the meat and use in chili or stew, usually about half and half with some pork sausage.

I'm planning to make some sausage this year with livers, hearts and gizzards from all my puddle ducks and breasts from some whistlers and buffies. Again, I'll add a generous amount of pork fat. It will be an experiment.
Click to expand...
 
Make jerky. I make jerky with buffies, mergies and just about any other duck and it turns out great. GE's should work too.
 
Rick,

The palatability of GEs is apparently dependent on where they are shot and where they were feeding just before they were shot. Here in Wisconsin GEs are one of my all time favorites for the table. Once they get in the state they seem to feed on good stuff like celery and are really good.

One of my favorite recipes was originally from Mike Trudel.

Preheat oven to 300F. GE breasts with or without the skin. Make a pocket in the breast as large as you can. Dust the inside with curry powder and stuff with Bleu Cheese crumbles. Take a length wise half of a seeded jalapeno and put in the opening. Sew or skewer the opening closed. Dredge in seasoned flour - whatever you like, S&P or cajun, etc. - and fry in oil or bacon fat in a cast iron skillet until brown. Put the whole skillet in the preheated oven for an additional 8 minutes. Should be medium rare when sliced. Works great with other ducks as well of course.
 
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