What's on your workbench? October 2019

Thanks Rick, Steve and Zane,

Normally there isn't much output from my shop in October, since I'm busy chasing ducks. This year, though.... We've gotten ~10-12" of rain since the season started, with more forecast. In this flat landscape nothing drains off quickly. This means the marshes are flooded, and thousands of acres of surrounding crop fields are flooded. Cover is short and sparse on the marsh and the birds have unlimited options.

Starting tomorrow highs won't get above 38 for the foreseeable future, and we're due for more rain and snow. Guess I'll be making wood chips...

Joel
 
Joel, we lost most of the coastal shoreline wetlands we normally hunt. We stopped to talk to a fifth generation commercial fisherman a day prior the opener. It was blowing a gale and pouring. Joel made a special point of telling us his and his brother's boat would not be going out in the morning... Just getting the boat in the water was a chore in itself, courtesy of the wind and rain. At the time, it didn't seem like a benefit, but one of my blind panel end couplings apparently made contact with the toggle switch panel and turned something on during the 89 mile tow down there, killing the battery. We launched the boat and plugged-in the charger, after mooring it and hoped for better luck in the morning. In that short half hour in the elements we were both soaked, requiring both of us to switch over to our Beretta jackets. Now, I have three Gore-Tex jackets that leak...

Opening morning was cloudy and dry. High points of the day were the nice lone black that came in at first legal light and the flock of eight geese that came in without making a sound, banked around twice and dropped right on top of the goose decoys. Absolutely quiet...that was pretty to see!!
 
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Wow, Frank, that sure is an impressive build!

September, and the first part of this month, was dedicated to house-painting, wood splitting, and other maintenance projects that I needed to get done before the weather turned. A ten day trip out West to hike & fish Yosemite ran into October. Good to have all of it out of the way well before our season will begin.

This week, I got back in the shop to get a pair of sponsor calls done for an annual sporting clays shoot held as a fund-raiser by the area Young Life group. This year, I went with a duck call & matching wood duck / pintail / wigeon whistle - both done from a nice blank of salt-cedar. Our own Al Hansen provided me with an ample supply of these rough-cut, cedar call-blanks; and once turned, they never disappoint.



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Bob -

I can't get my eyes off the drake Wood Duck decoy, wonderful ATTITUDE & STYLE.

Will have to go back to yer post later to check out the other work.[smile]



Best regards
Vince
 
Joel, I never thought about both hens I carved, out of fifteen birds, ending-up in the same pose...so much for prior planning.

Did your hunting improve? We just received what appears to be a pulse of birds from that snowstorm in the prairies and Canada.
 
Hi Rick,

It's raining again this morning.... Thief Lake (the area I used to manage) is under 2.5' of additional water, with cover that's only gunnel high at best. Birds are scattered to flooded grain fields throughout the area, and some hunters are having success there. I've switched to hunting Lake of the Woods and taken a few birds there. One fun outing the other day was my son and I decided to do a "cast and blast" where we set up the layout boat (the blast part of the equation) while the tender fished for walleye. My son never fired a shot (a couple of hens worked him), but my wife and I ate walleye last night resulting from my time in the tender boat. When life gives you lemons...

Joel
 
Still no diver rafts at The Bridge... Just enough mallards and blacks in the last push to make it worthwhile again to be out. And, yes, its raining here about every other day.
 
Very nice work all.

These y-boards came off my work bench on Monday and I put them to use yesterday. This may have been the fastest decoy related project so far....only 2.5 weeks. They went pretty smoothly after making some field silhouettes last year, the Steve Sanford painting tutorial was helpful as were the numerous threads on here about y-boards. I ripped 2x4s down for the arms and used 1/4" ply. As with all decoy projects I learned a lot.

Wednesday's hunt was also the first hunt over decoys exclusively made by me, so that was pretty cool. I was hoping to get some better photos but the wind really came up and I had a hard enough time just picking up decoys.

It's been a lot of fun learning the process and now hunting over my own rig.
View attachment Goose Y Boards Oct 19.JPGView attachment Goose Boards on water Oct 19.JPG
 

Mark -

The truth is in the photo on the water.

Now those are Decoys!

No need for taxidermy detailed realism, as the photo clearly shows.

Ya did good, and hopefully they will serve you well for many years.


Best regards
Vince
 
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