I bet that was big fun. Good on her! I'm assuming you made her 'sing for her supper'??? That's quite a pile of cranes. They migrate south over my moose hunting camp by the thousands and generally set down on the gravel bar in front of it some nights right at dusk. When I hunted them in Nome they would pass over in flocks of tens of thousands. It was an unbelievable sight; they were horizon to horizon. I was shooting them with a Navy Arms 12ga muzzle loading hammer gun loaded to near a light 8ga equivalent, which put them down with some authority if I did my part. My hunting partners 12ga Win 101 mostly just annoyed them unless they were pretty close. He shot at and hit one twice and it kept on going until I let it have it with my hammer gun, which put it down in a cloud of feathers. He looked at me and the gun and asked, "wtf have you got in there?" - "Plenty powder, Kemosabe!", I replied. He was impressed.
I generally fileted mine out and did them up pot roast style with potato and onions, slow simmering them on the wood stove crock pot style until done. They were just beginning their flite south so mostly had 1/2" of fat all over so cooked up quite nicely, made incredible gravy and left plenty of fat for the chickadees. I've never eaten better waterfowl.
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