Table of contents for October 2021 in Wildfowl

MATTHEW LATULIP, JR. represents the fourth generation of a duck hunting family, so it was not surprising that he chose a sea duck hunt at Cold Bay, Alaska as his high school graduation present.“At that time, the world was normal, and we were really looking forward to traveling up to Alaska in November 2020,” said his dad, Matthew LaTulip, Sr. We all know what happened next. “It was touch and go, with cancellations looming all over, including St. Paul Island, due to the Covid scare,” LaTulip continued. “Fortunately, we were able to jump through all the testing hoops to make the journey.” It turned out to be a special trip, for several reasons. “We were able to procure trophy harlequins, Pacific eiders, and scoter slams,” said LaTulip, but the biggest…

I COVET TOP-END guns and gear as much as anyone, but the fact is, a $2,000 semi-auto can’t drop ducks any deader than a $500 pump in skilled hands. Indeed, I love it when an ole’ boy--or even a kid--shows up with a battered Mossy 500 and outshoots everyone. But there’s one do-all, affordable slide-action that likely doesn’t get the attention it deserves. That’s Winchester’s Super X Pump. The SXP is the offspring of one of the most iconic guns of any genre, Winchester’s Model 12. With its internal hammer and English-styled fit that made this slide-action repeater suited to instinctive wingshooting, for 50 years the “Perfect Repeater” was the pump gun of choice for hunters until Remington began eating its lunch with its much less expensive 870. Realizing it…

INGREDIENTS  (2 SERVINGS) Two plucked (skin-on) mallard breasts (one for brine, one for marinade) Brine: 1 gallon cold water 1/2 cup kosher salt 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup whole black peppercorns 1/2 cup whole coriander seeds 1 bulb fresh garlic, smashed 8 ounces fresh ginger, smashed Marinade: 1 cup freshly squeeze lime juice 1/2 cup olive oil 1 bunch fresh cilantro, minced 3 jalapeños, seeded and minced 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 tablespoon brown sugar 3 large cloves of fresh garlic, smashed WHEN IT COMES to cooking your birds, I subscribe to the notion that you should do what your tastebuds prefer, but have, at some point, tried a myriad of methods to dial in said tastebuds and know exactly what they like. We’ve…

WATERFOWLERS KNEW 2020 was going to be a different kind of season. With the Covid 19 pandemic paralyzing the country and Canadian provinces like Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta off limits to US hunters, everyone was worried about hunting pressure and a quality experience when scads of enthusiastic waterfowlers who would normally make a trip to Canada instead descended on places like the Dakotas. The Internet was abuzz with talk that hunting anywhere in the states during 2020 was going to be a cluster and a less than satisfying experience. Popular venues around Devils Lake, Bismarck and Garrison were sure to be inundated with hunters so a key was going to be taking the path of least resistance. It was a plan we stumbled on years before the pandemic. The southern…

Dear Mr. Knowles, In reading the latest issue of Wildfowl I noticed your comment at the bottom of the Editor's Call, "Love to hear from you..." Wildfowl magazine has been a staple for me for the past 36 years as I have every issue of Wildfowl Magazine. When I first discovered Wildfowl back in early 1986, I had only missed the first 3 issues. I wrote to the magazine and asked for those first issues and from then on, I have been your most avid subscriber, often buying subscriptions as a Christmas present for my hunting partners. I have learned most of my waterfowling through its pages and tried a lot of different strategies and techniques, some successful, many not so much. It has kept me going in the off…

THE DUCKS WERE following the script, pumping their wings straight into the prairie winds and working right into the slough we huddled along. We were hidden like college kids, with no duck blind, simply standing in the waist-deep freezing water, hiding in the reeds and cattails just enough to not be seen. In our hands were the new Renegauge semi-autos by Savage, trimmed out in Mossy Oak Shadowgrass, perfect for the cover we were in. We were eager to get into the birds, it being the first real hunt of the year. The slough ran north-south, a couple hundred yards of habitat perfection. We’d scattered the decoys on the north end, then hid downstream from them about 40 yards. They came as singles, doubles, triples and groups of five, and…

OUR BUDDY HERE FOUND the honey hole—Nothin’ like findin’ a field of feeding Canadas! Hopefully he’s got a friend to help with pickin’ all of those birds. It takes a strong hand to pull all of that down off the breast. He must have had the barrel of his Winchester Model 1897 hot enough to warm his coffee. Sure enough before the “Plug Law” came into being. On February 2,1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Migratory Bird Act into law. Based on research by the U. S. Biological Survey, the magazine capacity of all repeaters, semi auto and pump, was reduced to two shells with one in the chamber for a total of three shots. On February 15, 1935, just two weeks after the two-shot rule went into…

SNOW SWEPT THE Dakotas, whisking ducks southward toward Kansas where Charlie Radford, along with a hunting buddy and his 12-year-old daughter were waiting. Hunting from Radford's boat blind, the men were participating in the special hunting season for youth, veteran and active-duty military hunters. "It was October 2020, the week before the regular season opened and just chilly enough for wearing jackets," Radford said. "We hadn't had a good push of ducks, yet, but the Dakota blizzard drove down a huge wave of mallards. We went out Saturday morning to hunt Perry Wildlife Management Area. We launched the boat in the dark, set it up next to some five-foot high brush and the blind blended in perfectly." They were cooking breakfast when shooting time came. The sky filled with ducks…

A BARRIER IS when the dog casts out to a point, hits a “barrier” and then refuses to go any further. The cause is simply not training in a variety of different locations and terrains. A barrier is defined as any change in terrain that negatively impacts and limits the dog’s range on a retrieve. A barrier can be as simple as a change in the color in grass from browns to green or vice versa, a path to be crossed, a road to be crossed, a ditch to be crossed, a change from flat grass land to brush or woods, etc. All these potential barriers should be addressed in training scenarios. You can tell when a dog encounters a barrier, because when he hits the barrier for the first…

It’s 3 a.m. in the morning and I’m standing at a boat launch in Newport, Rhode Island. It’s just barely snowing, and port, two trucks arrive, one pulling what looks like a small submarine. I’m quickly surrounded by a group of guys at least a foot taller than me. I stick my hand out and shake their hands. They look bewildered and a little awkward. Me? Not even the slightest. I’m certain this is the fifirst time they’ve met a stranger who was a woman at a launch. It wasn’t my fifirst, or third time I’ve been in this situation. I’m used to being the only woman. Sure, there are a lot of drawbacks, but it’s not all bad. I’ve hunted in nearly 20 states and bagged the same number…

IT’S JUST AFTER daybreak, the generous sea is calm and cold as the chilly fog tightly hugs the rockweedcovered ledges. Bell buoys chime gently as we navigate our fleet through ancient rock outcroppings and lobster buoys. After a 15-minute face-numbing boat ride, we know we’ve reached our destination as rafts of common eiders lift off the water and begin whizzing by. Anchors are strategically set to accommodate the rising tide and several gang-rigged decoy sets are deployed. A few longline strings are added to the upwind side to complete the spread. We motor off to drift nearby and await the eiders to return to join our fakes. If you’ve hunted sea ducks along the coast of Maine, this should all sound familiar. And while we are targeting the iconic ‘Maine-stay’…

IF SOME BAD actors out there were to design a bacterial infection to target duck dogs, he would make it thrive in marshy, muddy areas. He’d also cue it up to be most prevalent in the fall. Lastly, the bacteria would be most dangerous to any dogs that take a swim in, or a sip of, the infected water. Enter leptospirosis, a bacterial infection that checks all those boxes and more. Lepto symptoms range so widely, that it is an easy candidate for misdiagnosis. Or equally as bad, a delayed trip to the vet clinic on the grounds that things do not seem overly serious and will probably clear up on their own. Fever, sore or stiff muscles, general weakness, vomiting, coughing, runny nose, diarrhea, and even depression are just…

IT’S SO CLOSE you can feel the recoil against your shoulder — whiff the pungent aroma of spent gunpowder. You can shut your eyes and see wings cupped and orange feet down. Sense the urge of your well-trained retriever as he waits for a feathered body to hit the water with a splash. No, it won’t be long now, friends. Duck season is just around the corner, and if you’re still on the search for some new fakes, a call, or even a new shooter, we have you covered. ■ SAVAGE RENEGAUGE PRAIRIE Ready to conquer any waterfowl endeavor, Savage's new-for-2021 Renegauge Prairie will handle any load you throw at it, and it will do it at a level of smoothness that can't be ignored. Savage's patented D.R.I.V. (Dual Regulating…

THE MORNING PUSH to our spot wasn’t easy. The water was skinny, the bottom was soft, and the tide and wind both were inbound. Everything shifted overnight, and those conditions pushed so much dang cord grass close to shore that I didn’t think I could pole through it. The motivation came when the skies opened and rain spit in our faces. Jeff and I knew it was going to be good. Our anchor point was a channel edge beyond the curve in the 10-acre patch of reeds and salt hay. When the tide was right, the birds would leave their roosting areas, fly over the dunes and into the wind, cup their wings, and drift into the open water next to the reeds. They’d pause for a bit, check things…