Waterfowling’s weird, wonderful side Week in the wild rewarding

Time and again I’ve seen sportsmen tire of a particular style of fishing or hunting or lose interest in a specific furred, finned or feathered quarry. I’ve had it happen myself over the years. But never once has my desire to pursue wary fast-flying ducks or wily keen-eyed geese waned in the slightest, in fact I seem to become more interested, intrigued and inspired to be afloat or afield with every passing week of each new waterfowl hunting season.

Without a doubt, a big part of my ongoing captivation with waterfowling stems from the constantly changing scenarios. A never-ending supply of lakes, ponds and rivers combined with a plethora of regional farm fields represent the blank canvas of each outing. Regular variations in waterfowl species, shooting partners and weather conditions on each trip provide the tints and shades of paint for the portrait. And each of us becomes the artist, wielding different guns, calls, decoys and blinds as our brushes to create a hunting masterpiece, an exquisitely colorful memory to last a lifetime.

Regardless of how many hunts I’ve enjoyed over the many years and in an array of places, there are still surprises. Days when nary a bird was bagged have provided just as many memorable moments as outings when limits were filled in mere minutes. Just recently I experienced a weird and wonderful week of waterfowling I’ll never forget, and I just have to share some of these events.

Speck-ulation

Mother Nature was just giving us fair warning of things to come, but when you go to bed with bare ground and wake to several inches of snow in October, before the time change no less, it’s disheartening to bird hunters. Thankfully, the weather warmed, the white blanket melted away and then we enjoyed a week of Indian summer with temperatures more reminiscent of late spring than late fall. It was during this unusual warm spell that longtime partner Buddy Horr arrived from Dedham for two days of midweek gunning.

Buddy could be the poster boy for fanatic waterfowlers; time and again after working a 12-hour day at the Bucksport mill, he jumps in his prepacked truck and drives 31/2 hours north for a day or two of duck and goose gunning before having to report back for his next shift. As it happened, Buddy’s mid-morning arrival in Aroostook coincided with the arrival of several flocks of Canada goose and mallard ducks swarming into a cut grain field just a few miles from my house. Figuring these birds would fly back to fresh water after their morning meal, then return for a late afternoon snack to that same food plot, we decided to set up a reception committee.

Bud trundled off for a short “power nap” while I called Beaver Pierce and Roger Shaw to see if they could join us. It just so happened they each had last-minute openings in their busy schedules. I’m pretty sure their cancellations occurred somewhere between the words “afternoon hunt” and “large flocks of honkers.” With temperatures in the 60s, we surmised the geese wouldn’t fly from their roost waters until late afternoon since they only needed to feed for a short while thanks to the balmy weather. Nevertheless, our quartet began unloading decoys and blinds just before 2 p.m. under the premise it’s always better to be too early than too late, especially true when dealing with whimsical honkers.

By 2:30 we had set out 50 full-body decoys, 24 motion shells and a simulated landing goose on a pole. My three-man blind that looks like one of the big round bales of hay seen in many area fields was in place with one layout blind beside it, and the two trucks were hidden under a canopy of trees on a confined field road. All of us were sweating from setting up our rig despite being in camo T-shirts, an unusual circumstance for a late October but far preferable to being cold and wet.

After climbing into our hideouts, Beaver in the layout, Buddy, Roger and I in the fake roll of hay, we loaded up, prepared calls and the goose flag, then chatted back and forth. Every once in awhile a distant crow call or bark of a dog interrupted our stories, but when it was confirmed not to be approaching geese, we got back to telling tales. By 4 p.m. the sun began to drop and so did the temperatures, but that’s when a few flights of ducks began showing up so we kept warm calling and shooting at the mallards that winged within range.

About a half-hour later a distant but distinctive honk signaled the approach of our expected quarry. Beaver flagged while Buddy and I called and coaxed them closer, and at about 200 yards I noticed some strange, shrill replies from the flock that didn’t sound like the normal honker sounds. At first I thought there might be some real young Canadas in the group, or possibly some snow geese, a very unusual and exciting prospect, but when the birds made a wide circle at 100 yards, no white bodies were visible.

When they circled again at about 75 yards the intermittent high-pitched squawks intermixed with the deeper calls from the Canadas was even more noticeable and I spotted several smaller oddly colored birds among the flock. A third swing brought the geese to the outer limit of our shotgun range, and I suddenly recognized the strange species with the honkers. They were speckle bellies, a strain of white-fronted geese that breed in Alaska and Greenland and winter in British Columbia, southern Mexico, California and along the Gulf Coast. In more than four decades of waterfowling I’d never seen a speckle belly in Maine, nor had I ever heard of anyone else spotting one!

When the gaggle made a final pass and set their wings at 30 yards, I was beside myself with disbelief but coherent enough to yell “Take ’em.” Leaping to my feet and throwing the spring top of the hay-bale blind open, I shouldered my over-and-under Weatherby Athena 12 gauge, picked a Speck and fired. As the white-fronted goose folded, I found another one, trying to keep my elation in check, and tripped the trigger again. As my second goose cartwheeled to the ground, Roger fired from beside me and made a long, bragging-length shot on another speckle belly of his own.

When the gunsmoke cleared, besides our rare trio of Specks, Buddy and Beaver each accounted for a big Canada goose. We collected our geese and everyone admired the beautiful colors of the speckle bellies and that’s all we could talk about for the rest of the hunt. You might say there was a lot of “Speck-ulation” in how and why they ended up in Northern Maine! Personally, I’m enthralled and thankful to have been part of such a unique hunt.

Odd duck

Two days later I was out and about scouting for geese when another weird scenario occurred. A friend had reported spotting geese on a small lake near where he was setting a trap line, so I drove over to check things out for myself. Heavy forest surrounds the entire waterway except for an open space at each end where farm field roads broach the shoreline, and even these spots are shrouded by high beds of reed and cattails.

Long ago I learned the hard way that you never scout empty-handed because that’s surely the time there’ll be a partridge under a nearby apple tree or waterfowl close enough to shoot. Parking the truck a hundred yards away I quietly climbed out leaving the door ajar, dropped a couple of shells into my stack-barrel double and stealthily skirted the water’s edge. Slowly working my way to the open trail, I was pleased to see a wall of reeds five feet high concealing my approach, so I bent forward and crept closer, carefully placing each step and listening hopefully for gabbling geese.

By the time I reached the bankside barricade of tules, tall grass and brushes I’d heard not a sound, so I slowly stood and peeked over the top of the barrier of vegetation. Not a bird was in sight at this end of the pond, but as I stood there gazing I noticed riffles in the water beyond the eye-high fence of reeds. To my surprise a few seconds later an emerald green head appeared and then the male mallard’s body followed as he paddled away from me.

The duck had been so close to shore the high vegetation had hidden us from each other, and the rampart of reeds still prevented me from a clear shot. As I tried to step up onto a high hummock of sod the mallard spotted movement and the jig was up. Quacking wildly the bird leaped skyward, and that was his downfall, for had he stayed close to the water I’d have had no shot. When I fired the greenhead tumbled, and then to my amazement the air was full of flapping wings as more than a dozen ducks leapt from the reeds. One in particular caught my eye, a female wood duck I thought, and I knocked it down with my second barrel.

By the time I’d returned to the truck, donned hip waders and retraced my steps to the lakeshore, prevalent winds had floated my pair of ducks back along the cattails for easy retrieval. My second was no wood duck. It turned out to be a gadwall, another rare visitor to the Crown of Maine. Also called a gray duck, a friend had shot one several years ago and I’d heard of a couple of other lucky gunners bagging a gadwall over the last 10 years, and now I was the fortunate one. What a week I was having.

Double double

My last unprecedented effort of the week occurred the next day during a morning goose hunt. With all the guns I’ve owned over the years, never once had I possessed a side-by-side shotgun. For a few years I’d kept my eye out for a Browning double, a specific model that hadn’t been made for years, and finally a month ago I located one in near pristine condition. That venerable old side-by-side 12 gauge was older than I, and in truth probably in better shape, but it had certainly been better cared for.

Shunning bad weather and muddy fields, I’d waited for just the right outing to bring along my new double. Not long after dawn on a bright crisp morning with hardly a breath of air we coaxed nine big Canadas over the decoys. While my gunning buddies’ semi-autos barked, I sat up in my layout blind and fired my new old Browning for the first time, dropping a hefty honker with each barrel. What a way to begin a new partnership.

Trust me when I tell you I’ve had entire waterfowl seasons pass without a particularly notable event. But as I mentioned in the beginning, any duck or goose hunt is a special occasion as far as I’m concerned; however, that third week of October was one weird and wonderful week of waterfowling.

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