Alaska duck hunting - chapter 3

[Richard Flanders]

Just back. There weren't near as many as last weekend but I got 11 and only lost a couple. We don't go into how many shells that took.... I'll post a few pics tomorrow. Correction to last weeks take also: The 44 is how many Tom and Kate got combined; Tom/26, Kate/18. Not bad.

Oh well. Why wait? Here are a few pics. I'll have one more to add of all my ducks. They're all plucked. I pluck them immediately in the field because they pluck much easier when warm than if you let them cool. I got some nice roasters out of this batch! Only have to breast out two I think.

1. A friend came out last night in his Cessna 180 float plane to bring Kate out and spent the night with us and hunted this morning. This is of leaving time this morning after packing the camp up following the morning hunt. It's a 3.5hr drive home to Fairbanks.
2. The rest of the crew boating to a stand this morning
3. Nice sunset from my "blind" last night.
4. My 'blind' out in the open.
5. Another shot of my blind with our island home in the background
6. My ducks from this morning.

The pics of my 'blind' are in here to show how clueless the ducks are up here. At least 80% of the ducks that headed my way just came straight over me despite what I did. Some veered if I moved too much but most just fly right over no matter what you do. I got more shooting from that spot than anyone else got anywhere, and they all hid their boats, covered the motors, wore camo mesh over their faces, etc, I just sat out there and blasted away as long as I sat relatively still until they were in range. Some of the ducks were mature ducks too, just not feathered/colored out entirely yet. Talk about fat! Incredible. They make such good roasters with all that fat! The weather was good all weekend. The bay froze each night and only partially thawed during the day. I have a couple of ducks that landed on and broke through the ice which I'll have to breast out as they're bruised to hell and the breast fat burst open upon impact. I couldn't seem to hit anything with this hammer gun on Friday afternoon so switched to my 30" F/F SG VH12 and did well, but the skunk left the building today and I made a few nice shots this morning, including a 70+yd shot that got both of the wigeons in the one picture out of a small group with some KTM #3.