[MarketHunter]

Got back Saturday morning after spending two days gunning on Saginaw Bay with Kurt Densmore. We hunted the open water from his layout rig both days and had good shooting.

First day was a special one. We both killed a duck species we'd never shot before, and both sea ducks oddly enough. Kurt got a hen oldsquaw and I got a hen common scoter. Strange, to say the least, there on that inland water. Though they do kill a surprising amount of sea ducks up that way for some reason. We also both killed a greenwing teal, birds I'd never seen shot out of a layout boat before. Kurt did something I was envious of, something I'd never seen happen before. A pair of ducks tolled to the rig, he fired two shots out of his Parker and had a slick double. When I ran the tender boat over to pick them up it was a bull canvasback and a drake redhead. I've seen a lot of both species shot but never a double on a pair of birds both being drakes, definitely a moment to remember. We finished the day with four redheads, a canvasback, two greenwing teal, a bluebill, an oldsquaw, and a common scoter.

Second morning we were joined by Mark Oulette and had another good shoot. Conditions weren't the best, sunny with very little wind. But we still managed to make a day of it none the less. And, to make it even more memorable, I killed a pair of whitewing scoters, another first of a species for me. I had a group of three come right in on me and knocked down two with the first barrel, then knocking down the 3rd with my second shot. I broke my gun to reload and check for cripples. Before I could get a shell out of my pocket the 3rd bird rolled back over and took off flying! I was disappointed to say the least but was still glad to have the pair. We finished the day with six redheads, a broadbill, three bluebill, and the two scoters if memory serves.

The redheads were thick on both days but with only a two bird limit to kill you had to make a religion out of positive duck identification so you passed a lot of shots you might have otherwise taken.

All in all a great couple of days, I'd not doing any serious layout shooting in years so it was nice to get into the coffin again. My thanks to Kurt for his hospitality, I hope we can do it again.



Destry