NOT Ohio State Record Walleye!

This blog is primarily devoted to my first outdoor love, waterfowl hunting. However, I have posted information about pheasant and deer hunting; as well as bass, perch, and walleye fishing. So, I can not help but share this picture that my friend sent me! This is John Baker holding what he tells me is a new state record walleye. It is NOT, however. It was weighs 15 pounds! The big girl was caught on Lake Erie through the ice. I know that the current official record is 16.19 pounds.  Congratulations to John, a darn good duck hunter, a good guy, and obviously a great walleye fisherman!

THERE IS A REASON WHY THERE ARE PROCESSES THROUGH WHICH ONE SETS AN OFFICIAL RECORD. THIS FISH, THOUGH LARGE, IS NOT A RECORD. MY APOLOGIES FOR "JUMPING THE GUN" ON MY REPORT.

January Goose Hunting "It doesn't get any better than this!"

Late January in Ohio can offer great goose hunting if the lakes freeze and we get a little snow. There is something magical about the ice. Being able to get right out there where the geese feel safe has much to do with it. Wearing snow camo in the snow, on the ice, is nothing short of awesome! My waterfowl buddies and I have so many great days shooting on the ice it is almost enough to make me love the bitter cold weather!

We headed out on a goose hunt one January day, but we were surprised to find a fissure in the ice running from the dock bubblers all the way across the bay. As a result, we had to walk in from the other side of the lake. At least it was safer that way. It was a quarter mile walk pulling sleds loaded with decoys. We were pulling quite a bit of weight but the ice was plenty thick. The howling north wind was blowing snow in or face that stung when it hit our skin. I stopped and pulled my snow camo ski mask over my face. I did not want to do that yet. The last thing I wanted to do was start sweating! Sure enough, I started to perspire so I took the mask off. As soon as I did the perspiration froze! I quickly and pulled up my neck gator over my mouth and switched hats. Finally, we arrived. The geese were already flying so we rushed around trying to get set up. We had to set the shells on the snowy patches so the wind wouldn't blow them across the lake. We chased a few. I had difficulty with one of Randy’s flocked head full body decoys, so I took my glove off for a minute. Bad idea! My hand was instantly burning, then numb within seconds! I had a dickens of a time getting the glove back on. I decided to take a minute and open a hand warmer and shove it in my glove. I looked up to notice that it was snowing sideways so hard that you could not see across the decoy spread. We could hear the geese honking as they passed by, but we could not see one another! As the last decoys were set, we made a mad dash for our guns.  Commonly we will lay a decoy bag down carefully to insulate us from the ice, but there was no time. The new snow has stopped. All that was left was an onslaught of low level snow being forced down the back of our necks by the ridiculous arctic blast. So there we lay on the ice, half wet from sweat. The heat being sucked out of our bodies by the solid lake beneath us. But no one cares because here they come! One hundred massive honkers headed our way, low across the ice! The giant birds were coming straight in from downwind! They locked up there wings in landing formation ready for the glide in at 200 yards. It was a slam dunk. But as hunting goes, they “fowled” up our plans. They started to drift to the left then flapped their wings to get a little lift. Darn! Then they locked their wings as they passed by. “One more try”, I thought. A few gentle whines as the birds headed north, and I could see them swinging around behind us. I had my head tilted all the way back looking at then upside down with my eyes stinging from the windblown snow, but through the freezing tears I could see them completing the circle to get downwind again. We hammered out a few laydown calls and they locked up on approach!  By now it was only the excitement of the hunt that was keeping me from shivering from the intense cold. My dog on the other hand was so excited he nearly came unglued. He was shivering from adrenaline and softly whining. The geese finished this time and we sat up and slammed them! I looked over at Randy and said, “It doesn’t get any better than this!”

Goldeneye, a newcomer!

Buckeye Lake duck season has been a strange one indeed! If the three day diver hunt in early November isn't weird enough, no mallards around Christmas is unspeakable. To add to the oddity of our season we have now bagged 3 species of birds that we have Never harvested on our lake and 2 beautifully plumed birds of species that we have not had the pleasure of holding in full stately attire. 

The latest of these is a very handsome drake goldeneye. Now we have shot goldeneye before, but never on Buckeye lake. I am not sure why. There is no rhyme or reason to their absence or their sudden appearance for that matter! 

Last January on Alum Creek (north of Columbus) there were loads of the whistling divers, but none on Buckeye. In any event, the "ice has been broken". The first goldeneye any of us has bagged on Buckeye is in the boat! 

Drake Goldeneye

Dr

Trophy Birds from “The Trophy Boat”

The opening day of the south zone in Ohio came in with a bang! We had a great day! Good shooting and good friends is an unbeatable combination! According to Dan the Mojo Man,” the only thing worse than having a bad day in a duck boat is not being in a duck boat!”

We have had a good year duck hunting thus far, and this weekend was NO exception! The day started a little rough. Randy spent the night sleeping in his boat in order to save the spot we wanted. Dan G. and I came later. Randy had 45 decoys out and 5 mojo stands. Dan and I arrived with another 50 fakes and 4 more mojo stands. Setting all that up made us 11 minutes late setting up for shooting time.  We may have been on time if I didn’t have to drive through freezing drizzle to get there. I nearly slid off the road at one point.  What a duck hunter won’t do!

The skies were dark and gray and the stiff breeze was at our back as planned. It was 7:25, but it was unusually dark. The freezing drizzle stopped, but I am not sure we would have noticed. We were at full alert, scanning the skies for the black dots that race across the sky and listening intently for wing beats, quacks or anything which says DUCKS! Our olfactory senses were filled with stench from the bog behind us. It didn’t matter because Gunner was the only one who can smell ducks anyway!

Out of nowhere a big greenhead appeared cupped up and sailed straight into the space left in the blocks for our feathery friends to land, or at least try. Dan missed and his gun jammed (it happens). One bark from my Benelli and he landed abruptly with a splash! Gunner got so excited he whined and howled at the same time. Then he launched himself ten feet from the boat like a torpedo. He was on a mission! Five minutes later Randy saw a dark feather encrusted animal flying high. One round of high balls from his Haydel call and the duck squeezed his wings and dropped from the sky. A few feeding chuckles later a beautiful black duck was lined up for the harvest! One shot and Dan made up for the first attempt. Moments later Gunner reentered the boat using his WAG Boarding Steps ladder with a gorgeous black duck. After Randy and I hailed at the next two flocks of birds, a single mallard finally accepted our invitation. I sounded the feeding chuckle while Randy sat at the ready. It was Randy’s turn and he did not disappoint. One bark from the SBE and we each had a puddle duck.

Dan had to leave with his black duck at 10:30. Randy and I proceeded to fill our limit of mallards. Dan the Mojo Man invited us over with him. They finished their limit of mallards and had birds pouring in. It is great to have friends. He and John are great guys, and we are blessed to have them as friends!

As great as the duck hunting was, it was not the highlight of the trip. The highlight was Randy’s snow goose! We had a beautiful mature snow goose fly into the Canada fakes. Randy made the shot, and he became the proud owner of his first snow goose! A trophy for us in Ohio! It was as white as snow, a beautiful bird.

On the second day the sky was not a full of waterfowl as the first day. We had our blocks and flappers out on time, and we did have three singles lock up and coast in. As usual we took turns shooting and each member of our band scored on their rotation. Matt saved the spot for us, so he put the hammer down on a nice drake gadwall. I was up next. A big majestic drake mallard tried to land outside the decoys. He did, but upside down! As I reached for more shells, Randy said hello to a duck that I never saw coming. When I looked up all I saw was a duck on his back and a very white belly. It was a beautiful drake pintail!

Earlier this season Randy shot a beautifully plumed drake bufflehead. The lucky stiff then shot the snow and a sprig! For this reason, Matt anointed my boat as “The Trophy Boat”! 

A Gentlemen's Hunt

I was sitting in the living room half watching TV on a Friday night. I was listening to the rain pounding on the glass of the French doors. I was supposed to be going deer hunting in the morning, but that was going to be miserable in the cold rain. Being a waterfowl hunter, I am no stranger to either cold or rain, but deer hunting requires you to be still as a statue for extended periods of time. Not fun in that weather!

 As my wife flipped the channel to the latest Hallmark movie, I noticed that I received a text.  "Now who could that be?", I wondered. It was my buddy Dan who lives in Lewis Center. He inquired, "What are you doing tomorrow?" Immediately I remembered that the north zone was in, and Dan lives in the north zone! Oh yes! I love to hunt ducks and I now have a good reason NOT to sit in that tree stand in the rain!

I made arrangements to meet Randy at the Park-N-Ride at 5:20. That meant I would have to get up at 4:00. We agreed to rendezvous at Dan's house at 6:15 and leave at 6:30. Right away I realized we could not get to the lake by shooting time. Dan said that we would arrive there about 7:45 and be set up around 9:00. It was a "gentleman's hunt!"

 I knew that Dan did these "gentleman's hunts” as he calls them, but I have never been a participant. I like to be there ready to go before sun-up, so as to catch the early fliers. It is a well-documented fact however that mallards like to come back from the fields in the mid-morning hours to get a drink. We call it the 10:00 flight.

It was fine. I was with friends, and I love spending time with good friends in a duck boat! My friend Dan is known for having plenty of Mojo’s in his spread of blocks. Some guys call him the Mojo Man! We put 7 full sized Mojo’s out that day. Along with the motorized flappers, Dan brought a boat load of size 72 Restle Mallard decoys. I have 24 size 72 Herter’s myself. They float so nice in the choppy water. It really makes a difference. I tried to count them a couple of times on the hunt. I will guess that we had 55 big blocks out and another 16 nice looking plastic geese. A nice arrangement of those beauties made our spread look REAL!  He had a plastic duck decoy that he found that he named “Black Jack”. He went out last.

We were there about 20 minutes before we saw our first ducks. They cupped up and turned west. We watched them cut the north wind and drop right down in front of a McDonald’s on the lake shore.  Dan blurted out, “Those ducks want French fries.” Shortly before 10:00 we had a pair lock up and coming right at us. We hunkered down behind his Avery Quickset blind and Dan said, “get ready.” The birds were about 45 yards out when they flared. Dan send, “take ’em!” Well, we tried but in spite of all the barking of our 12 gauge loads, we did not scratch a single feather. We laughed at each other and reloaded the guns.

Shortly thereafter, we had a single work us and fly off. Dan told Randy that it could have landed on the other side of the island to which we were tied. Randy decided to get out of the boat and walk to the other side. After he got to the other side, we had 8 mallards work us. Regardless of how much sweet music Dan and I played our duck calls, they just circled and circled. “ Quaaaak Quaaak Quaack Quack  Quack! Tickit tickit tickit tickit tickit! We hardly had time to sit back from our disappointment when a pair of puddlers appeared out of nowhere, cupped up and dropping fast! At 25 yards Dan gave the command and we each dropped one with a splash. Dan’s black Lab followed their splash with a belly smacker of his own as he launch from the bow. High fives all around!

Around noon Dan got out his camp stove and heated up a pot of  “Mac-N-Chilli”. We had a hot lunch which was all a part of the “gentlemen’s hunt”. The smell of the chilli was about to drive me crazy! Needless to say, it didn’t last long! It was 35 degrees and we had a 25 mph wind at our back. My toes were a little cold and I had a slight shiver. That hot chilli (complete with Tobasco sauce) warmed us right up!

We saw ducks fairly consistently and bagged 3 more by 2:00.  At 4:00 the “gentleman’s hunt” was over, and we were off the water before it was completely dark! I don’t know how many times I will initiate the gentlemen’s hunt guidelines, but it was fun. When I retire, if I want to hunt every day during the week, it might be the way to go!

Avery Quickset Blind - some ways to improve it.

The Avery Quickset Boat Blind is the best boat blind on the market (in my opinion). I have hunted ducks for a long time. I have built boat blinds, and I have hunted behind the Northern Flight and others. I have yet to see a better blind than Avery's.

I put an Avery blind on my 16' Grizzly Tracker, and I loved it. The blind fit my boat easily and well. As I used it, I found some things that I would have improved upon if I were to do it again. One big thing was the height of the "top" of the blind where my rain top goes. I would like for the top to be clearly above my head, but it wasn't. This is important to create shadows and to keep the wind and rain off!  The other improvement I wanted to make was to eliminate the huge gap in the middle when the front and back were both up. I like to swing the two sides up when geese are flying overhead. If the two halves come together, it will hide you from high flyers. These two problems are actually a function of the length of the pre-bent sections of frame that made specifically for the back (top) and the front swing sections. The length of the frame before the bend limits blind height and concealment. A friend of mine has an Avery Quick Set blind that he has mounted on the third 20' Lund that he has owned. He likes the Alaskan model with side console and 90hp motor. It is high and swings closed overhead. I am not sure why they are not made that way anymore!

I was able to solve both of these problems with the same solution! By cutting the vertical part of the frame in half (before the bend) I was able to add an extension. I bolted in a 12” length of tubular steel. The inside diameter was very close to the outside diameter of the frame. The next step was to paint the steel satin black with Rustoleum spray paint. It was important that I leave the last 4” of the pole intact, because that end is designed to fit in the plastic pivot attachment.

 

 By bolting in an extension, I was able to raise the blind by 8".

Not only did I raise the height by 8”, but I was also able to move the pivot attachment 8” closer to the center. This is huge because by closing the gap of the front and back by a total of 16”, you almost eliminate it!

Another smaller issue that I had with my first blind was untying my blind so I could “pop” it up! I had a difficult time finding the black elastic cord and black balls in the dark. We want to set up the blind before shooting time, but our best chance to get it untied from travel mode was under the light at the ramp (where there is one).I found my solution to this problem at Lowe’s hardware. They have these brightly colored “pipe cleaner” looking ties.

 They are covered in plastic, 32” long, tough and flexible. These ties come in bright orange and bright green. They are great for wrapping around the blind material so it doesn’t unwrap while traveling, and they are easy to find when unwrapping the blind for hunting.

A third issue that I had with my first Avery Quick Set Blind was with leaving it tied up at the dock in the early season. The actual problem was that I did not have the blind material covered up and it faded a bit in the sunlight. I did not have a boat cover at the time. I since discovered a way to wrap the camo blind in the wind blocker material. This prevents the boat from being exposed to UV light and fading the camo!

 Hopefully there is something here that will help you. Gunner and I love to hunt ducks, and we love to hunt them behind our Avery Quickset blind!

Oldsquaw - a Sea Duck Lost at Buckeye Lake

Opening day of duck season on Buckeye Lake (Ohio) was pretty good. Of course I did secure the "Ace" spot on the lake, or at least my favorite spot! In order to get that spot, my yellow lab, Gunner, and I had to sleep in my 18' Alumacraft on the lake. Yep, that's right. We put our boat in the evening before and motored to our spot, deposited the decoys, put the Avery quick set up and hit the sack. I did cover the boat with a tarp and turned on my new propane heater. Oh, did I mention we had a blow up mattress? We were cozy! The sun came up and the shooting started. We ended the day with eleven ducks and a goose. We bagged five species, mostly mallards.

The next week I volunteered to secure the prime spot again. This time I got up at 2:30 and launched at 3:30 AM. As I feared someone was already there! Darn. I had to settle for spot B, but with the wind shift out of the north, spot B was a good choice. Spot B is a point that we call "West Point". The report was that there were divers on the lake. That made a point very appealing. We were blasted with a cold snap and there was a light early snow fall. I set out a nice spread of Herter's mallards, geese, divers, and four mojos. My friends, Matt and Randy, showed up later with more blocks and 3 more flappers. Our spread exceeded 100 fakes. It was quite impressive.

We had a great hunt! We dropped 13 birds. I will not mention how many misses! There was quite a collection of feathery participants; ring necks, ruddy, buffle head, canvasback, blue bills and green wing teal and one gadwall! Some of these ducks seldom visit the shallow water of "Buckeye Ocean". It was quite a treat, and Gunner had a ball!

Gunner's share of the spoils.

The next week Randy volunteered to secure a spot for the group. He had first pick at 3:30 AM.  The duck forecast was not promising. Despite the poor duck report, my brother elected to drive two hours to join us before sunrise. The wind was wrong and the ducks were few, but little did we know how blessed we were about to become. A beautiful drake mallard cupped up and "parachuted" straight into the spread at first light. His majesty's arrival was announced by the report of the Randy's Benelli SBE as he joined the poor imitations of his likeness. Later, my brother, Brian, and I were schooled by a passing diver which may very well have been the first duck to exceed the speed of sound! Brian and Randy redeemed our pride by doubling up on a pair of birds and Gunner was quite grateful! It was an hour before we saw another waterfowl other than a loon that landed 200 yards out. The loon serenaded us with his "north woods" song.

Suddenly out of nowhere Brian and I heard the bang from the shotguns of Matt and Randy. I looked up to see a duck dive at the edge of the decoys. I asked Brian, "Where did that come from?" As luck would have it, the wind shifted and we were not tied up! Oops! The boat was sailing through the decoys. I decided that we may as well go get that bird while we're out here. I had just pulled the dog ladder in when the bird popped up again. Brian covered it with #2 steel. I started the 60 HP Merc and motored my way to the edge of the spread. When I looked up to see where the bird was, I couldn't believe my eyes! It was an Oldsquaw! I saw one once 37 years ago on Lake Erie, but wow! What was that bird doing here! How Beautiful! When my brother reached down to get it I said, "Be careful! That's an Oldsquaw! That's a trophy!" I took 8 pictures of it before I gave it to Matt and Randy! What a day! I don't know how that sea duck got this far inland, but he sure made us excited!