Destry, Russ Bickel, Kevin McCormack and I met up a week ago in the little village of St. Ignace de Loyola on the north bank of the wide spot in the St. Lawrence known as Lac St. Pierre. This has become an annual excursion for Destry, Russ and me but it was the first time for "O frame". Kevin displayed the mark of true gentleman when he offer to room with Le Grand Homme, Destry aka "DeHo" in our tidy three bedroom waterfront apartment just 100" from the dock. A number of Parkers made the trip, Destry's 34" DHE #3 frame, his DH 30" #2 frame and his D grade 32' toplever hammer 10. Russ had his 32" DH #3 frame and his 30" #0 frame DHE 20 along and I had a #1 frame toplever 12 D grade hammer (which did not prove itself to be Old Reliable
) and a #1 frame 16g 32" VHE. Kevin went all Browning...I will say no more except Diana's engraved by Funken are OK
Our first 3 days were spent in the marsh hunting from blinds and resulted in limits all around. Mallards, blacks, greenwings, gadwalls, woodies, a pintail drake and I confess two little hen hoodies both taken by yours truly at first light on two different hunts to Destry's delight...oops... We journeyed to Le Isle Verte on the south bank of the river about 250 miles away for a Thursday hunt among 1200 snow geese decoys. We were 1 for 1 on the only bird that came in during a constant drizzle. After a good lunch, we returned to St. Ignace for our final morning on Friday which proved a bit slower than the first 3 days with but 11 ducks in our common bag. I was very pleased with a new Ithaca NID 10g Mag that I used for 3 of the 5 days. Most of the ducks were taken on the pass and the Ithaca with 1 3/4oz of Federal Tungsten Polymer #6s was more than up to the task. A Ruark famously wrote, "Use enough gun." All in all another great trip with great people and a few drinks and cigars tossed in
10-05-2009, 05:06 PM
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