Merry Christmas

For those of you who swing by and somewhat enjoy my literary wonder, I send you best wishes and a productive new year.  I'm nearing a vacation and intend to catch up on some duck hunting.  When I'm done, there won't be a creature stirring...

Enjoy your season...

DEDH

Ice fishing mayhem...

It's on and I haven't even finished out the duck season, but ice fishing is fast upon us and I've found myself in a bit of a dilemma...

A great friend of mine is well, a device and equipment aficionado.  And as of right now we are in the process of either 1) building an ice shack, 2) buying a used one, or 3) investing in higher quality commercial shack.

So here's the run down of how this has been.  Let me remind you this is part fun and part half-truth...

There will be something done for the short term and a long term plan is in the works so I'll keep you posted, but I want to share how exactly our planning has run awry...

My idea of an awesome shack... $600.00

Our version of a nice Sno Pro 6X10... Researched online prices around $3,000.00

And Bud's Big Daddy Dream Shack... about $13,000

All that's good isn't always edible...

Right after my writing up yesterday’s post, I began the process of dressing my quarry.  Upon field dressing my black duck, things didn’t quite look right.  Both breasts were impregnated with small white objects that resembled rice.  My personal philosophy with questionable game is “when in doubt, toss it out” and that's exactly what I did.  But this issue remained at the core of my undying process to know everything before I die, so I then began the almighty search of answers to my questions.  So here goes...

I started by searching for parasites that affect ducks and quickly made way to this protozoan parasite named sarcocystis.  After comparing several pictures online to my photo, it became apparent that I was getting close to determining the cause of avian rice meat.  However, this disease is distributed world wide and found in a variety of animal species which led me to consider this question, “Is this common in Maine and am I at risk since I dressed the animal?”.

This morning I wrote to the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife with a description of my findings and was responded to in a timely fashion.  Sure enough it was Sarcocystis, or “Rice Breast Disease”.  It isn’t common in Maine, but does occur in waterfowl as Sarcocystis rileyi when duck either feed or drink from water that has the eggs of the parasite.  Here is a good link to read up on this topic.  Click Here

For my safety, it looks like I’m okay especially after cleaning up well once I discovered the problem.  It has been suggested that you can still cook the meat very well and still digest the meat, but I’m not sure anybody would be interested in trying Parasite Infested Duck.

The hen taken at the same time had no evidence of being infected.

Take care,

DEDH

Snow day black duck...

With fingers crossed, I worked on the blind constructing it with olive drab canvas, alders, spruce, and marsh grass.  It seemed like a chance, usually rain hits the coast while snow falls inland.  But I knew that the opportunity could become a reality and if I found myself in school, my buddy Jab would give it a go with my father.  So realistically, it became a win/win and a coin flip for me.

The weather forecast continued to cooperate with my ambitious plans and I began planning for a school cancellation.  I planned on calling my buddy as soon as I got my call, and then prepare to head out to his house where we would try for the black mallard a.k.a. black duck.

Sure enough at 5:30 a.m. the call came in and the ball was rolling.  Since high water would be around noontime, we did have some time to burn before the tide got up.  However, we also had a little bit more snow than I wished and found myself cleaning up the driveway & vehicles.  By 8:30, I stormed out in four wheel drive and made the half hour trek to the gunning venue of the day.

We quickly readied our gear and moved to the salt marsh only to find the water covered with a blanket of slush.  If this snow had arrived during high water, then the water would have readily absorbed all snow.  However, the snow only accumulated during the low water and floated as the tide moved in.  Discouraged but not defeated, we pulled the decoys and gear out to the blind and quickly tossed five plastic black duck decoys into the slush.  Just outside of our small spread lie a narrow channel of open water representing the tidal creek that drains the marsh.  But the entire marsh was slush, our success seemed to hinge on luck.

Our two black ducks await retrieval, notice the slush and the only open water.

No sooner had I met Jab in the blind, a single black duck landed just outside the decoys.  Neither of us had 1) expected a black duck to be into the dekes within one minute of setting them out or 2) loaded our shotguns for we hadn't even got the firearms out of the cases.  The black duck took off and we made no hesitation to grab our guns while rushing to find our shells for the next opportunity.

That opportunity came four minutes later.  A pair responded to my call and arrived with full commitment.  As soon as they landed, we popped up and fired leaving both for retrieval.  I attempted to net the two blacks but the large tide dictated otherwise.  Jab slid out of the blind to get his skiff and row out to get the downed pair.

I'll be honest a say that the slush was not easy on Jab.  For every row he took, I'm guessing he made about 11 inches headway.  Eventually he got out there.

Since our black duck limit had been met, we chose to hope for a mallard and set out my bufflehead decoys as well.  We knew that our chances were slim, but we had the morning and figured we'd spend it in the blind.

We watched geese several hundred yards away and about twenty five black ducks inside of us working the only open water near them.  Eventually cold wet hands got the best of us and we chose to call it a day.  Even though it wasn't exactly as we had planned, I'll take it and be thankful.

Big tide, backwards wind, & a fair day on the water...

Beggars can't be choosers, and I've been begging mother nature to throw me a weekend without wind.  The forecast was supposed to be northerly 5-10 turning westerly 5-10 by morning and a bit of flood tide made for a potentially good day.  Things went well but not quite as planned.

The temperature was a wet 45 degrees at 5:15 a.m. this morning and the wind, non-existent.  I was quite pleased with the motor which had been suffering from a long illness of algae in the carburetors.  A thorough cleaning and a new carb kit seemed to be the cure as I gradually opened up the Mercury en route to our gunning hole.

Then the wind picked up slightly from the southeast which didn't hamper our early gunning, but would put us into a more tedious position later as the tide would turn.  Matt dropped an early old squaw as I connected on two early eiders.  My father dropped a couple eiders as well before the tide turned ebb.

Several things turned a promising hunt into an average run.  First, the wind was not ideal and the high tide stood us alone with no structure to funnel the ducks into range.  In addition, high tide in mid-morning offers no feeding opportunities for sea ducks.

Nevertheless, we scored seven sea ducks and quit around ten o'clock.  A highlight of the morning was a banded drake eider tagged in Nova Scotia in 2007 by my father.  For someone who hasn't been chasing sea ducks nearly as much as I'd like, I'll take this day as a success and run with it.

The Duckforce has been covered for the upcoming storm scheduled to drop several inches of snow early this week and I'm hoping for some black duck action in that storm.

Until next time,

DEDH