Neat morning

[Ian F.]

Did a little jump shooting this morning before we headed off for the weekend, hoped to get a couple of birds and met that expectation all the way to a full count!

Had a new one for me today... Put down a pair of mallards, and after retrieving left them on the trail next to creek I was walk to pick up on the way back. On the way back I kick up a marsh hawk, hmmmm

My suspician was quickly confirmed, it'd made lunch of one of my mallards! I was gone at max 1/2 an hour, and obviously this bird knew to look for dead birds after the sound of the shot. It was not worth salvaging, so I decided to share my count with this quick thinking raptor.

All in all a great morning, and all the birds are big! First time ever I weighed them and what blew my mind was how close in weight they all were, of the 6 mallards I brought home, 5 weighed 2 3/4 pounds (plus or minus a little) and one 2 1/2. They're all dry aging, going to be some nice fatty breasts on them ready of for a pan sear!

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/dec11.jpg

Very best,

[nano]

Jump shooting is lots of fun and a good workout. Congrats on the birds.

[marbles67]

how do you dry age the birds??

[betteroffishing]

and what is jump shooting ?

[Ian F.]

Jump shooting is either walking along, or paddling along an area where birds are/maybe and you "jump" them up and shoot them! it's one of my favourite ways to hunt, particularly from Canoe.

Dry aging is what your butcher does, let the meat age in a cool environment. With ducks, you can do this with breast or whole birds. With whole birds you need to gut them (I pluck them, if I'm going to later) and then let them sit for a couple of days to a week. This time of year I just do it outside in shed or bbq. Otherwise you can do it in fridge. The change in the meat will blow your mind! I regularly leave birds for a few days with guts in I'm going to breast, and the meat just doesn't change as much as gutted.

Give it a try, you'll get hooked!

Ian

P.S. pissed off wives, girl friends and mothers for dead ducks hanging/laying around are not my problem!

[sparkes3]

marsh hawks and eagles have retrieved a few ducks for me ,if they can get them before me they can have them.i have also used them to get a few that i could not find just watch where they are looking/flying around and go check it will be there.