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Ian F.
01-18-2008, 09:02 AM
I can honestly say I’ve had the best watefowling season of my life and it isn’t done yet! We still have late geese (Snow’s and Canada’s) as well as one of the highlights of the waterfowling year for me, BRANT! It’ll be nice to finish out the season, on my birthday hunting the last day of brant and the last day of the season….

http://partridgecreek.ca/Partridge%20Creek/Gunnin%20pics_files/mewith5.jpg

Last Saturday was my last chance to get out for ducks this year and keep employeed and married, I’ve gunned somewhere between 35 and 40 days this year and only ran skunk once. I thought I would finish out the season on Pintails, quickly moving up in the favorite bird to hunt category and hope was to get a mountable bird. To not drag this out too long, the first bird that came in was a beauty drake pintail that went down in 1 shot. In fact the next 3 birds only took 4 more shots, it was one of those days, perfectly decoy birds, shooting was on, one step short of Nirvana! The rain was full on and the wind was pounding, it was nasty, but the birds coorperated. Ended the morning with a 3 x 2, 3 drake sprig, 2 drake widgeon. The icing on the cake was that all the birds where mountable quality, the red gods where looking down on me this day. I spent quite a bit of time picking which of the 3 would go to the taxidermist and hopefully my choice is the right one!

http://partridgecreek.ca/Partridge%20Creek/Gunnin%20pics_files/5onlog.jpg


http://partridgecreek.ca/Partridge%20Creek/Gunnin%20pics_files/tails.jpg

The longest is still on the bird in the freezer, these are some of the others.

Ian F.
01-18-2008, 09:03 AM
The weekend before I had a great hunt with Michel and James, James’ first time duckin ever! A lone bird was coming straight at michel and I told hime to take it, then right as he shot I saw it was a common merganser, not our target of the day! I have shot a lot fo mergs in the past but have other birds I like to eat better so these days I just let them pass. Well, this boy turned out to be the rarest of all merganswer trophies, he was banded! I would venture to guess that of all the banded birds out there, less then 1% are divers and sea ducks, now break that down further and how many of those are mergansers, let along full drakes? This is like pulling cherries on 3 slot machines in a row, the odds are soooo slim. I have friends who target mergies and have never shot a banded one.


http://partridgecreek.ca/Partridge%20Creek/Gunnin%20pics_files/michelwband.jpg

http://partridgecreek.ca/Partridge%20Creek/Gunnin%20pics_files/band.jpgSo now I rest, time to get some carving done that’s been overdue, and after all I still have to get ready for geese in 3 weeks!

Very best,

Ian

MichelD
01-18-2008, 09:58 AM
I made it out Monday and fed an eagle.

I jumped and shot two mallards out of a ditch on a potato field and they fell on the other side of the deep ditch so that I had to walk 100 yards to the other end to cross it to the other field and walk back and while I was at the other end an eagle picked one up.

I thought I could sneak out for a while today, but other commitments (work for example) are keeping me from doing that.

duckslayer
01-18-2008, 11:41 AM
Ian congrats on your last duck hunt of the year,those pintails are great looking drakes and would be a dream come true for me, as here in Ontario there are not many around and to get a fully plumaged drake would be a wall hanger for sure!!
Congrats to Michel on the banded merg, i pass on all them that come into my spread but it makes me think twice now!!! LOL I took a new hunter out this year and the mallards would not play nice so he cut his teeth on some commons and then a flock of mallys came in and i managed a double!!
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o296/duckslayer1/Picture619.jpg
My season has been done here since dec the 20th so all the pic's and stories from out there in BC are still keeping my dreams alive have a good one
P,S good luck on the brant hunt
Slayer

Tanya
01-18-2008, 12:22 PM
Tanya's hubby John here;

Lol Ian we had to stop Marc a few times last weekend or he would have been eating merganser stew.

Nice pins.

Marc
01-18-2008, 01:01 PM
Tanya's hubby John here;

Lol Ian we had to stop Marc a few times last weekend or he would have been eating merganser stew.

Nice pins.

Who would have though merganzers would be in a corn field. :mrgreen:

Ian F.
01-18-2008, 02:33 PM
I have a picture somewhere from a goose shoot in a cornfield in PEI, in the picture are about 10,000 eiders that finally got up the nerve to fly across the island from Malpeque bay to the straight! Have to keep in mind that Eider will do anything to not even come close to land let alone fly over it! But then again, they taste alot better then mergies!

Ian

Crazy_Farmer
01-18-2008, 06:20 PM
Ian, great pictures and thats a very lucky merganser, from the official banding site

COMMON MERGANSER
BIRDS BANDED 2,940
BIRDS ENCOUNTERED 296

I'd say thats very rare compared to 6 million mallards to 1 million encountered,

Congrats.

Ian F.
01-18-2008, 06:48 PM
CF,

Can you give me a link to that site? I looked and looked for some stats and gave up digging

Ian

Schutzen
01-18-2008, 07:06 PM
Wow
Only have ever shot one banded duck a widgeon drake from a banding done in Saanich it was 9 yrs old by the band, it was an indeterminate age on the paperwork when banded.

Schutzen
01-18-2008, 07:07 PM
If you guys want a ganser fest let me know theres a couple trillion round here!