Fustercluck
Active Member
So Who has been out chasing birds this first week of the all-important 3rd split of ducking season? The weather has been downright gnarly down here on the shore the past few days, but I have seen a fair number of birds around. Cans have started to arrive on the Choptank River outside Cambridge and on Silver Lake in Rehoboth (not that you can hunt them there).
I hunted off Public landing for longtails on Thursday with Jeff Coats, my brother, and a buddy from Chincoteague. It was sunny but cold and windy. We saw a decent number of Oldsquaw and Scoters, but due to some mathematical difficulties in computing enough lead (i.e. we couldn't shoot shit), we bagged 2 mountable oldsquaw and a really ugly hen scoter. We passed on shooting innumerable dippers, as Jeff's dog Coot didn't need the experience in the cold water and we just wanted to shoot longtails.
Friday, the weather was the same, as was the crew, minus Jeff. We moved down the coast to Chincoteague Island, looking for brant. We took my Chesie puppy, Crash, along so the general rule of anything flying was fair game. So, we shot dippers and one or two dragon heads, along with a nice drake black duck and one Canada goose that we coaxed away from a flock. We couldn't get a group of 200 brant to give us the time of day when we moved out to the shoal, but when we were looking the wrong way 3 brant buzzed us. No shots. Such is the luck of duck hunting. The puppy did well, though.
Saturday the weather sucked balls and we didn't get out until the afternoon. The ocean side was unhuntable, so we went over to deal island and hunted the western impoundment. Saw lots of groups of 8-15 wigeon and teal, some 3-4's of blacks, and lots of smart groups of geese. We shot 1 dumb gadwall and basically froze our butts off. It was really cold and blowing by the time we picked up the blocks.
I hunted off Public landing for longtails on Thursday with Jeff Coats, my brother, and a buddy from Chincoteague. It was sunny but cold and windy. We saw a decent number of Oldsquaw and Scoters, but due to some mathematical difficulties in computing enough lead (i.e. we couldn't shoot shit), we bagged 2 mountable oldsquaw and a really ugly hen scoter. We passed on shooting innumerable dippers, as Jeff's dog Coot didn't need the experience in the cold water and we just wanted to shoot longtails.
Friday, the weather was the same, as was the crew, minus Jeff. We moved down the coast to Chincoteague Island, looking for brant. We took my Chesie puppy, Crash, along so the general rule of anything flying was fair game. So, we shot dippers and one or two dragon heads, along with a nice drake black duck and one Canada goose that we coaxed away from a flock. We couldn't get a group of 200 brant to give us the time of day when we moved out to the shoal, but when we were looking the wrong way 3 brant buzzed us. No shots. Such is the luck of duck hunting. The puppy did well, though.
Saturday the weather sucked balls and we didn't get out until the afternoon. The ocean side was unhuntable, so we went over to deal island and hunted the western impoundment. Saw lots of groups of 8-15 wigeon and teal, some 3-4's of blacks, and lots of smart groups of geese. We shot 1 dumb gadwall and basically froze our butts off. It was really cold and blowing by the time we picked up the blocks.
