2023 Waterfowl Thread

Longstud said:
Interesting bird from Saturday’s hunt. Brandt goose with solar powered GPS tracker on its back and some cool jewelry. Seen lots of bands and tarsal bands,toe tags,neck collars etc, but this was a first! It was quite tight (the harness) and joked the bird committed suicide the way it came in solo!!
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We got a pair one time that had radio tracking antennas glued to their backs. Never noticed until we went to clean the birds as they were under the feathers. The antenna tip was barely protruding above the tailfeathers. That is one decorated bird! Pretty cool.

We set up this morning and ran traffic about a half mile from an open water roost. Our time was limited due to Ed's having a dentist appointment but we did pretty good for the limited time we had and the limited opportunities presented. We did have one big flock of mallards work in at 15-25 yards and I tripled picking out green only...
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DFarmer said:
Do you get very many Brant in Ontario? I always thought of them as a coastal bird.
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We shoot some every year if we get some easterly storms for a few days. This bird was taken in Morrisburg on the St Lawrence river.I don’t know if they just follow the river from the gulf to escape the storm or get blown in off course. We are not far from the eastern flyway.
 
madtrapper143 said:
Sad to see a bird with that much stuff hooked on it. Research is one thing but I think we know all we need to know about migratory birds for now.
Darryl
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Agree! It was very tight and didn’t appear to be comfortable for this poorbird which was apparently two years old and handed in Quebec. The gps collars are apparently worth a small fortune and come with a fairly substantial reward for their return from what we’ve been told. Update will follow as I learn more!
 
Longstud said:
Agree! It was very tight and didn’t appear to be comfortable for this poorbird which was apparently two years old and handed in Quebec. The gps collars are apparently worth a small fortune and come with a fairly substantial reward for their return from what we’ve been told. Update will follow as I learn more!
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There is a facebook site if memory serves you can go into to see bird tracking. I know a fellow who has gone on at least one recovery trip in SK to find a unit for the bio's that quit moving. If memory serves he recovered the unit. Again trying to recall but I think it had been on a hen mallard and he found where she had been killed by a predator and recovered the unit? He is a member on here. Maybe he'll chime in with some info about the fb group? I am not on fb so no idea what the group is called.
 
If this turns out to be our final shoot of the 2023 season I have only one word...EPIC!
My buddy Ed is a statistics guy stemming from a career in logistics and according to him our first shot was fired at 07:15 taking a lone drake mallard out of a flock of 5 (4 hens and a drake) and shooting our last goose at 08:00 to complete our limits of ducks and geese.
It was a textbook hunt with a light snowfall starting right after the first ducks into the decoys and ending a few minutes before getting our last goose and finally clearing up into a beautiful sunny morning as we packed up.
Birds came in feet down landing in the 5.5 dozen skinny lessers. Only twice did I even turn on the spinner and only to centre the birds up over the pocket. Ed and I had agreed with a little insistence on my part that ONLY GREENHEADS were to be shot. Well Ed had a hen casualty when he shot at a drake and the hen closest to it folded at the same time as the drake and one of us shot one that was in mid ### change. I think it must be a woke mallard.
yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7

We haven't heard a shot fired or seen another hunter in 3.5 weeks. In fact one farmer asked if goose season was finished as his home quarter was covered in geese and he hadn't had anyone ask to hunt in three weeks.
I dropped my wife off at the property we deer hunt on and as I write this at 10:52 a.m she is still in the deer blind hoping to fill one or both of her two deer tags. I'm home, birds cleaned awaiting a call to either pick her up as she has had enough or to go gut a deer and haul it home. The deer blind is 6 minutes from the house.
All I can say is what a morning!!
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Got out this morning and had an awesome hunt. Legal light was 6:39 and I had a limit of greenheads by 6:50. I shot two triples so it was fast and furious. One duck needed a kill shot so I at least I got to pop off an extra shot. I stuck around for some geese but they no showed again. Instead, I just got some awesome footage of group after group of ducks decoying in. Never had so many mallards dropping from the sky like I had today. A lot of black ducks as well which is nice to see. Unfortunately I already had a limit of ducks when the blacks started flying in. It would have been awesome if I could have shared the experience with others. I had enough ducks come in for a group of 5-6 hunters to easily limit out on mallards and blacks. There was no need to even pay attention to all the divers coming through.

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1963beretta said:
Got out this morning and had an awesome hunt. Legal light was 6:39 and I had a limit of greenheads by 6:50. I shot two triples so it was fast and furious. One duck needed a kill shot so I at least I got to pop off an extra shot. I stuck around for some geese but they no showed again. Instead, I just got some awesome footage of group after group of ducks decoying in. Never had so many mallards dropping from the sky like I had today. A lot of black ducks as well which is nice to see. Unfortunately I already had a limit of ducks when the blacks started flying in. It would have been awesome if I could have shared the experience with others. I had enough ducks come in for a group of 5-6 hunters to easily limit out on mallards and blacks. There was no need to even pay attention to all the divers coming through.

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Now that's how to limit on mallards!! Way to go!
 
the spank said:
Now that's how to limit on mallards!! Way to go!
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Doesn’t always work out that way, but when it does, it’s bittersweet. Feels good to get it done in that fashion but as you know the day starts off super early and there’s an a lot of work to get set up for a 12 minute hunt.

Anyhow, thats one of the downfalls of solo hunts.

On another note, you have put a hurt on the birds again this season. Well done Spank! How do you plan on processing the 2 tons of waterfowl meat we know you gave stashed in the freezer?
 
1963beretta said:
Doesn’t always work out that way, but when it does, it’s bittersweet. Feels good to get it done in that fashion but as you know the day starts off super early and there’s an a lot of work to get set up for a 12 minute hunt.

Anyhow, thats one of the downfalls of solo hunts.

On another note, you have put a hurt on the birds again this season. Well done Spank! How do you plan on processing the 2 tons of waterfowl meat we know you gave stashed in the freezer?
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Well lets see, we made bologna, bacon cheese smokies, bratwurst, mesquite jerky and ran a few pounds through the grinder for burger. Also dehydrated some, cut it into chunks and made dog treats out of the stuff that was a little bit shot up. We give that to the farmers for their dogs and they and their dogs love it. Used to give them all the other stuff too until I discovered the dogs were getting it all...lol.
 
the spank said:
Well lets see, we made bologna, bacon cheese smokies, bratwurst, mesquite jerky and ran a few pounds through the grinder for burger. Also dehydrated some, cut it into chunks and made dog treats out of the stuff that was a little bit shot up. We give that to the farmers for their dogs and they and their dogs love it. Used to give them all the other stuff too until I discovered the dogs were getting it all...lol.
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Nice, some good eating right there! I’ll be making sausages tomorrow but I’ll only be processing about 15-20 lbs of meat.

We’ve already eaten a lot of this year’s harvest. I haven’t harvested as many geese as I usually do this year so our sausage fest will be a lot lighter than usual
 
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