SpinnerMan 2019-2020 Logs

[Rick]

Gots to hit 'em in the handle, not the duster...

[BGkirk]

Sounds like a big club


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[Duck Engr]

Used up all of your luck on early goose season. Not many ducks/geese around or just not moving?

[SpinnerMan]

Gots to hit 'em in the handle, not the duster...

Hadn't heard that one before.

Sounds like a big club

When it was surrounded by cornfields, it was one of the top clubs in the state. Now that it's surrounded by the suburbs, the numbers reflect it, but we still have a decent number of hunters, but just because finding a place to hunt in the area is difficult.

It's more of a fishing club. There are about 375 members.

Not many ducks/geese around or just not moving?

There are a ton of geese around. They are just stacked up in certain fields and not roosting or moving around our area. Two weeks ago I helped inspect the blinds so I went around the whole club. We saw a decent number of ducks. They seem to have vanished.

[SpinnerMan]

Date: October 21

Hunters: Myself

Time: Morning

Location: B&G 15 Duck & Goose Blinds

Weather Conditions: Cool and nice with light to no wind

Waterfowl Activity: Even less

Birds By Species: 1 Canada goose

Ducks were almost none existent.

It sounded like quite a few geese roosted to the north, but didn't see a lot.

Had one single come right to me. Passed over the decoys about 25 feet off the ground, but the gun didn't go bang

Right about time I was going to pack it up. A pair came out of nowhere making a bunch of noise. Called them around. Should have been an easy double, but it took me three shots to kill the first one He was a big boy. Maybe that's why I had to shoot him more Solid 12+ lbs.

[SpinnerMan]

Date: October 26

Hunters: Myself and Jesse

Time: Morning

Location: B&G 8 Duck Blind

Weather Conditions: Cool and nice with light ENE wind increasing to a moderate NE

Waterfowl Activity: Almost zero

Birds By Species: DNS

I can list every duck we saw. 5 hooded mergansers and 1 wood duck/unknown hybrid. And we probably saw less than 20 geese.

While it was a terrible day hunting, at least it was an interesting day.

Shortly after sunrise, 5 hooded mergansers (2 beautiful drakes and 3 hens) landed about 100 yards away. For the next 4 hours we got to watch them play and fish. The drakes would chase each other around. At one point a hen swam between like she was trying to break them up. I typically shoot mergansers (the flavor disappears in hot Italian sausage), but as Jesse said when they finally swam into the decoys, we were having too much fun watching them.

About 10 o'clock, this duck comes flopping from the shoreline near the blind and lands about 25 yards away. Jesse says "grebe" but I suspect merganser, but obviously not going to shoot until sure. It swims quickly away. By the time I am sure it is a regular duck of some kind it is out of range. I grab my binoculars. Definitely a duck, but what kind? It definitely has wood duck in it. The backside, and head were part wood duck. Didn't have a full comb. The beak was wood duck like. The colors and shape are definitely not 100% wood duck. It seems a little bigger in size. It finally flew and passed by at 45, maybe 50 yards. I had the gun up, but just a bit too far for me. I kind of regret not taking a crack. It was not a pretty hybrid, but its the only duck hybrid I ever seen in the wild.

hoodies.jpg

[DComeaux]

The cypress swamps around here were, and I'd assume, still infested with those little rapid wing beaters. You've got me curious about that hybrid. Would have loved a picture, now it's just another big foot sighting.

[Rick]

...now it's just another big foot sighting.

Probably back on the farm pond.

[SpinnerMan]

The cypress swamps around here were, and I'd assume, still infested with those little rapid wing beaters. You've got me curious about that hybrid. Would have loved a picture, now it's just another big foot sighting.

I'm going to hunt that area the next couple times I get out and home for a minor miracle that its still around.

BTW, this is how I spent yesterday morning. My goose club got a new lease in a premium location. We built the internal structures for 4 new pits we are putting in. If we get the right weather, we should be set for December and January.

[DComeaux]

Labor of love....

[SpinnerMan]

Labor of love....

Definitely.

[SpinnerMan]

Date: November 2

Hunters: Myself and Jesse

Time: Morning

Location: B&G 10 Duck Blind

Weather Conditions: 30's at sunset, light seeming variable wind

Waterfowl Activity: Not a lot, but there actually was some

Birds By Species: 1 Mallard and picked a redhead from the duck tree

It was a slow morning of duck hunting, but the best so far. We had a few small flocks of ducks work us, but nothing fully committed until a suicidal hen at the end of the morning. Jesse got caught mid shell swap because we hadn't seen any ducks in a while, but had some goose activity so I swapped out shells. He decided to do the same, which left me the only shooter on the hen.

About an hour before that, three redheads (didn't know that's what they were at the time) went into the next blind over. They shoot. Two of them are coming our way. One is working really hard to stay in the air. The first one passes by and we whiffed on it. The lagging duck that was working hard disappeared. We figured it ran out of gas over by our boat (our water levels are so high we can't put our boats in the boat hides in a lot of blinds). Jesse went to get the boat when we were ready to pick up. After he looked around a bunch for the missing duck, he looked up in the trees because he was sure it died. Sure enough. It was able to reach it with an oar and finally beat the tree enough for it to fall. If it won't have got hung up in the tree, it might have landed in our boat. You could see where the blood actually dripped in our boat.

Redheadtree.jpg

[Rick]

Lucky find, that.

[SpinnerMan]

Lucky find, that.

Yep. I don't think I would have thought to look in the trees.

[SpinnerMan]

Date: November 10

Hunters: Myself and Jose

Time: Morning

Location: B&G 10 Duck Blind

Weather Conditions: 40's light breeze shifting to a north breeze with a bit of chill to it

Waterfowl Activity: Very little ducks, but a decent number of geese especially really early

Birds By Species: 2 Canada geese

The club had a couple decent days of duck hunting (which I didn't get out) but that wasn't the case Sunday. Didn't see many ducks and didn't have a single duck work us. We had one probable woodie come in over the decoys shortly after LST, but against the dark background neither of us got a shot.

We saw a fair amount of geese. We had one flock pass over at marginal range. Jose said we should have shot. I said not with duck loads, but if you want to try for some geese, I'll swap out for some goose loads, which we both did. This turned out to be a good choice. We had a couple dozen geese heading our way, high but not too high, they kept sliding to our right, but thankfully the flock was big enough that the end two birds were close enough and we dropped them both.

[SpinnerMan]

Date: November 17

Hunters: Myself

Time: Morning

Location: B&G 22 Goose Blind

Weather Conditions: low 30's south to south east about 5 mph

Waterfowl Activity: Saw maybe 10 ducks and 15 geese

Birds By Species: DNS

Most of the club is froze out. After a couple of unsuccessful days deer hunting. I felt like instead of not seeing deer, I'd go and not see geese.

About sunrise, a flock or 7 or 8 geese responded great to my call, swung around to the north west and looked like they were going to come right in. The passed over maybe out of range. Next pass I was shooting regardless, but there was no next pass. One pass was enough for them and they went on their way.

Late in the morning I had two low slow flying lonely sounding singles show absolutely zero interest as they passed by.

I did have a pair of egrets look like they were going to decoy in nicely, but then swung around and landed behind the blind. Not exactly expecting to see them with everything froze up.

Egret.jpg

[SpinnerMan]

Date: November 30

Hunters: Myself, Jeff, and John

Time: Morning

Location: Lake Ontario near Niagara Falls

Weather Conditions: low 30's. Relatively flat seas to start, but they grew significantly by the time I jumped in.

Waterfowl Activity: Ducks all over the place

Birds By Species: 12 white-winged scoter, 5 old squaw, and 1 bufflehead

Jeff wanted to hunt all five Great Lakes from a layout. Today, we hunted his fifth and it was the best of many good days.

We were hunting from a two-man layout. Jeff and his nephew John started out in the layout. We had birds landing in the decoys while we were setting them out, which seemed like a good sign. We got everything set and Jeff and John in the layout just after LST. The birds kept coming. Pretty quick they each had 3 scoters (the limit is 4 in NY). The captain told me to get ready because as soon as one of them gets 4, we will switch me in and worry about trying to get the rest of the limit later, so we don't risk it dying off. Well, plans changed, a few old squaw showed up, Jeff shot a hen bufflehead and before long, they were both at 5 ducks each with 3 scoters a pieces. They each finished with another scoter.

This put me in the boat all by myself. They swapped me in before picking up their last birds. They ended up down wind of me and a beautiful drake old squaw is coming in straight from their direction. I'm thinking please past to my left. Sure enough, it drifts to my left for a nice clean safe shot and I drop it. The action kept up pretty good. My shooting was not the greatest, but not terrible. I blame it on the seas picking up quite a bit. The birds would disappear below the waves as they headed towards me because the waves were that big and the birds that low. Picked up a couple white-winged scoters (my first ) Picked up another nice drake old squaw. Unfortunately lost a really nice drake as well. Three beautiful ones were passing by together, I had visions of multiple on the water, but when I hit the first one, I noticed it wasn't dead going down. Scratch the double plans. Couldn't kill it on the water. It is damned near impossible to hit them from a layout with ~3 ft seas. I could see his white cap going straight towards Toronto, Canada. He dove and was lost when the tender boat got to him.

18 ducks in about 1.5 hours. It was an amazing hunt.

We have 2 more days, but tomorrow for sure and almost certainly Monday as well we will be hunting the upper Niagara River because the lake won't be safe to hunt. If you hear of a hunter mishap and they ended up going over the falls, it could be me We will be hunting about 6-7 miles up from the falls.

LakeOntarioGroupsmall.jpg

LakeOntariopairsmall.jpg

[Duck Engr]

Looks like an awesome day!!

[Rick]

And an adventure. Or I always found big water layout hunting such. Not the fan many are, but definitely on the list of things all waterfowlers should experience.

[SpinnerMan]

Date: December 1 (Freezing Rain Day on the Niagara River)

Hunters: Myself, Jeff, and John

Time: Morning

Location: Upper Niagara River

Weather Conditions: upper 20's to low 30's. Freezing rain and lots of it. Thankfully warming to just lots of rain towards the end to clear the ramp and roads sufficiently

Waterfowl Activity: Slow but fairly steady

Birds By Species: 6 goldeneye, 3 mallards, 2 bufflehead, 1 redhead, 1 ringneck, 1 hooded merganser

We hunted a boat blind in the upper Niagara river because the winds are blowing down the length of the lake making sea duck hunting impossible. It rained all day from light to the heaviest rain I have hunted in. It was freezing rain most of the morning. This hurt us as it built up on the decoys and even the spinner wings were covered. But that's the only thing to complain about.

We had slow but consistent action the whole time. Countless times we had goldeneye land 10 yards short as well as a few mallards and bufflehead. The iced over decoys probably looking a little off. If not for that, we really would have had a gang buster morning.

We had a big flock (50ish) divers working. The guide thought they were probably bluebills. The grey heavy rain and a ball of ducks. Not the easiest to ID. They made a swing out of range and a few peeled off and buzz us. I thought it was the right call to hope for the big shoot. Until I went, wait, they aren't bluebills. Beautiful drake cans We should have been able to drop a couple of them. The rest never came back. Blew our one chance on cans.

Another really good day hunting. Would have been a great day if not for the pouring freezing rain.

My hood is not that color. That's ice.

UpperNiagarasmall.jpg

[Duck Engr]

Y’all are tougher than I am!

[Rick]

Golly, gee, wilikers that looks like fun...

My last Ohio Valley hunt was in freezing rain such that I had to beat the ice off the ropes tying my canoe down before launching with the decoys to paddle through the slush-topped Ohio to meet two buddies walking in overland. After one of them helped me set the spread and the other assembled the modular blind we had scattered about to hide its identity from other river hunters, none of which were also out, we drank cooling coffee, ate cold donuts and recounted old tales while watching the decoys ice under bird-barren skies.

Crazy thing, now that I'm so spoiled, was that my two partners in misery had just flown the mid-winter survey, and we knew damn well there were no ducks around. But it was the last day of duck season, and we were duck hunters.

[Darren]

Bbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

That's some real deal waterfowling though, good work!

[Deltaman]

Congrats on the hunts Spinner, and glad the birds were there for y'all!!!!!!

[SpinnerMan]

]Date: December 2 (Snow Day on the Niagara River)

Hunters: Myself, Jeff, and John

Time: Morning

Location: Upper Niagara River

Weather Conditions: upper 20's to low 30's.
Light to moderate snow all day.

Waterfowl Activity: Almost none

Birds By Species: 1 mallards, 1 bufflehead, 1 red breasted merganser

We hunted the same spot as yesterday. The birds just didn't fly. We actually killed a relatively high fraction of what we saw. A great trip ended with a whimper.

[Rick]

A great trip ended with a whimper.

Next year...

[Ducaholic]

Good stuff thanks for sharing!

[Duck Engr]

A great trip ended with a whimper.

Next year...

Speaking of, since this was Great Lake number 5, where is next year’s trip going to be?

[SpinnerMan]

It was a great. I wish I would have taken my phone out in the layout the first day. I could have got some incredible photos and videos.

When setting the layout boat, the anchor just would not grab a solid hold. The captain thought he had it sufficiently. Which it was when my buddies were hunting in the calmer seas. However, when it got rougher with me in the layout, the layout got pushed into the decoys. By the time I got my last bird, I was sitting near the left front of the spread. I had a lot of birds work behind me or to my right further than I could swing in the layout. It was a two man layout. I was actually sitting diagonal so I could shoot as far to the right as possible.

So when I got my last bird, they just left me in the layout until they could untangle all the decoys that also got moved. They would pull one of the long lines free and then drift away as they untangled it and put it in the boat. Then come back and repeat. This left me in the layout for a long time as they sorted out the mess. I got to watch a lot of pretty birds work the spread. It would have been nice to get photos and videos, but it was a cool experience.

[SpinnerMan]

A great trip ended with a whimper.

Next year...

Speaking of, since this was Great Lake number 5, where is next year’s trip going to be?

The consensus seems to be the Atlantic Ocean. Needs to be bigger than the Great Lakes

The guy that wanted to hunt all the lakes really likes to do the layout hunt as a change of pace from the mostly field hunting that he does. So he's going to be looking into eider trips to the east coast. That's probably what we will be doing next fall.