Although we have never had a season, I would agree with the comments. Large slow target, minimal challenge, no heart pounding adrenalin rush (except maybe the first one). Bang, thud, repeat. Think I'll stick with roosters.

Bruce: congrats on your acquisition. Could you work me through the paperwork you have to do to get a gun to the south and what, if any, additional dollars that adds to a purchase. I have not investigated that process. I have only heard it isn't all that easy and it is costly - but that's just like hearing and accepting "don't touch a Damascus gun".

Cheers,
Jack

Jack, to ship a gun from Canada into the US requires that a US purchaser obtain an ATF Form 6 Application and permit for importation of Firearms, Ammunition and Implements of War. Send it in to ATF, takes about a month, no charge. Get it back, Fill out the attached Form 6A, send it to Canadian seller, he sends gun to US address through Canada post. Clears customs in US, they check documents.

I have a Fed Curios and Relics FFL but I don't think that is even needed if one is merely importing a gun into the US for personal use, as the Form 6 says "FFL number, if any".

The cost is the postal charge, what $50-$75 insured?

There is a US Bureau of Alcohol, Tax and Firearms web site that explains the process and has forms. I found it to be very simple.

So, you can shoot damascus and send a gun south with no real issues. I think some folks just don't want to get involved with bureaucracy. Thanks for the info. Could come in handy one day.
Cheers,
Jack

Bruce if I am not mistaken Trumpeter swans are protected by Federal law, I think the only legal swan to hunt is the Mute swan. Eric

Good Lord. I hope no one took me seriously about the trumpeter swan. Yes we have them come through around here and they are doing well, but big trouble if you shoot one. The mute swan is legal in a lot of places to shoot.

I've hunted cranes but never swans.

C-grade - that's exactly the way it is just about all the time. Not my cup of tea.

On slow days, when all the other fowl aren't flying, out of boredom we'll put out a couple white trash bags on sticks and call them in just mimicking their calls. Really fun to watch them decoy in like B-52s.

At 350mph and 300ft AGL? I flew B-52's for many years. I recall duck hunters ducking for cover.

The Fed Gummint had considered opening a season on the eastern Flyway a few years ago strictly for the purpose of reducing their numbers. It was said that because they can reach so much deeper than any other waterfowl that they were destroying valuable feeding habitat for ducks and geese. As usual, the usual "antis" made a lot of noise in opposition of such unfounded statements....
I don't know what ever became of the plan.

Alaska allows hunting tundra swans but not trumpeters. I didn't think anyone allowed shooting trumpeters; somehow that just seems wrong and would offer nothing resembling 'sport'. It's an odd system here, or was the last I read of it. You get only one permit at a time. You then go out and harvest one and have to go back and get another permit. I guess they allow it but make it difficult. I think it may be limited to western and southwestern Ak also. Not even sure. Personally, I like nothing more than to come in on top of a flock of many hundreds with my plane, take a few pictures of the white against the green canvas of the landscape then drop down and off to the side, slow up and form up with them at a distance and watch for a bit. Quite the sight that. They are the very last birds to leave. When the lakes are frozen over except for a hole in the middle and there will be hundreds on the ice and some on the water. I think it takes the young a long time to be ready for the flight south so they leave late and in huge flocks. Absolutely gorgeous sight to see them winging along with the snowy peaks of the Alaska Range as a backdrop.

I should have clarified that the Mute Swan was the targeted species in my post.

Flying over the flat land North of Anchorage with Denali on the horizon we saw one mated pair on every pothole pond with a small shelter and a canoe on a few of them. One bird was always on the nest mound with the mate foraging a distance away. Pretty sight those big white birds on aquamarine ponds set in an emerald green landscape.