With all the big game (kinda) hunting out of the way we shifted to mainly waterfowl for the second half of the trip. I have to say, at this point in the season there, waterfowl is not the high point.
Our first morning out, dedicated to waterfowl exclusively, we sat and watched a few locals with a remote roboduk put the hammer down on the birds. It was actually pretty impressive because I believe they only let one bird by, of the birds they shot at.
They quit (and so did we) shortly after the yahoos across the river snuck up and started shooting at their birds on approach. Apparently, over there, there are many hunters who believe it isn't worth buying (or using) decoys when you can just get between others and the birds they are working. We saw this tactic a number of times on our trip, including people tresspassing to intercept geese we trafficed in from across the valley one morning. I also witnessed skybusting that exceeded 150 yards. I can only imagine what they were saying prior to their shots. Jeb says: "Hey Clem are those ducks or geese?". Clem answers: " Don't worry about it Jeb, we'll check'em when they hit the ground. Sides Jeb, ducks and geese are both open so just lead'em by 20 yards". SMIRK
Sorry didn't mean to rant.
Except that first Sunday morning hunt, the birds were pretty scarce. We would see high flyers but it was like the Pintails, here on the big"C", when they have some place in mind already. They'd stay so high coming through that they looked like starlings.
Finally, on Wednesday, the opportunity presented itself and I connected on a Suzy.
We spent that same evening trying to locate more birds or better numbers. We knew of small groups hanging up on private spots but, the public spots were pretty well pounded by the whole skybusting thing and birds just wouldn't work there very well.
During this evening hunt/scouting trip we stumbled onto an area that seemed to look workable for the next morning.
We got up earlier and constructed a blind, right on the river, at a small inlet. We did miss a couple opportunities right off the bat(no excuses). We missed and, also just didn't see some coming in soon enough and got busted. So we're sitting there disgusted with each other, and ourself, and a Greenhead flies right in. On her second shot, my sister completely pummels this greenhead. I mean wings straight back and summersalting to the ground.
This lone greenhead is, with out a doubt, the most significant bird taken on our trip and more so for my sister. That it was taken by her in Wyoming adds more significance.
Maybe I should explain. Here is a picture of the last successful hunt my little sister was on with me and my son prior to this trip.
The above picture was taken in Jan. 06. In August of the same year, while on a trip to (where ekse?) Wyoming, my sister came in contact with the West Nile Virus. She spent 2 months in the hospital, nearly two weeks of that was on a machine(full life support). When it was all said and done she had to relearn walking, chewing and even swallowing food. She obviously was not able to hunt that fall for ducks.
The following year(07 season) we found she was not yet able to lift her weapon with her left hand strength still nearly zero. She was however, in the 07 deer season, able to kill a nice 3X3 blacktail with the aid of shooting sticks and a well placed ground blind. She could just as easily have taken a doe(she has a handycap permit) but chose to hold out for a buck.
At some point, we (more so she) had to face the fact that she might not ever be able to swing a weapon and probably would never have the strength to work her Nova's pump action. At that point, her boy friend at the time, bought her an SBE2. All last season she realized that she might not be able to swing fast enough still and so did not hunt with the new gun. We tried to figure a bracket (or something similar) that would help her hold the weight up and allow her to chase moving targets by turning her waist. Although it seemed like a good idea, the actual bracket or belt never made it past the idea stage.
I was surprised when she said she wanted to come to Wyoming with me on this trip. I mean, Wyoming of all places, after her last experience there.
So anyway, I'm sure you can see how much this single bird, on this trip, to this location might mean so much to us and my sister specifically.
I ended up with two birds that day also. One that morning and, the other on the evening hunt.
The following day, we planned to be our last day hunting.
We hunted with my son again, at the location where the locals had brought carnage on the birds our first hunt there.
That morning was nearly uneventful except my sister and my son each shot a bird. I also had shots but, well let's just say they were practice shots or shoot and release.
We decided to travel abit and do some scouting for our last evening in Wyoming. We also took along the fishing poles and gear since the evenings had been fairly slow up to then.
While I fished my way down the river, my son moved out ahead, looking for possible waterfowl setup areas for future reference.
After I had not seen him for awhile, I called him on the cell. First thing he says is "get over here dad. you ain't gonna believe this." He said there was a funnel cloud of birds somewhere between 300-500 birds, ducks that is. We made our way to where he was and, he was right, I couldn't believe it.
The birds were hoping around from private field to field. We had spend the last week in the wrong parts obviously. He had a blind already thrown together so we sat down and threw the line out and waited.
The fish started biting and it wasn't long we had 3-4 fish on the bank.
I caught this from the blind after already keeping one the same size so I had to release it back.
We never did get any birds to come our way until after shooting light but, the sight we saw left one heckuva impression.
All the way back to the house my sister campaigned to get me to stay one more day so we could hit this new spot before heading home. As we pulled up to the house I finally gave in and said OK but we had to call home first to make sure first.
Honestly, it was pretty tough to sleep that night. I couldn't get the picture of all those birds out of my thoughts.
We got to the spot early and built a new blind that we thought would be more in the flight path when the birds started moving around. Just when the birds seemed to start moving around good the shooting over on one of the private properties started up. We watched a guy knock a duck down at what looked like 90 yards up. Things just weren't working out and the other hunters seemed to be pass shooting more than anything which just pushed the birds higher each time they would try to get in the area to feed. It just wasn't what I had imagined all night while tossing and turning.
Finally about 10:00 we trafficked 3 geese in. It was crazy, one of the only hunts we didn't bring the goose deeks along and we called them right in. If I were in the permit zone, here in Oregon, I would have expected them to be duskies. 3 birds in 3 birds down. We all knocked one down. The goose my sister knocked down was her first ever. She never goose hunted with us because she has no permit to hunt the zone.
We hung out a little bit longer but, the bluebird weather finally got the best of us and we pulled up and left.
Took this tailgate pic back at the boat ramp.
That was pretty much the end of the hunting portion of the trip.
I'm hoping to get back next year when the timing of the birds is better understood and I have a buck antelope tag.
We didn't kill a pile of birds but it was a great trip just the same.
another Wyoming trip (part 2)
duckboy
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