Back from Wyoming

[BANSnake]

Hunted last week in Western Wyoming and had one hell of a time. 3 days, 2.5 guns, 42 birds killed. Hunted 2 mornings with 2 guns and 1 morning with another fella and killed about 50% mallards and 50% teal. All mallards were in eclipse plummage in varying stages. Not too many places where your hail calls are echoed by elk bugling and coyote howling. Will post some pics when I get a chance.

[Duckman#1]

Sounds like a good time. How close you think you might have to be to kill a bull elk with 3" #2's?

[KRT]

Sounds like a fun time!

[LabLuvR]

Awesome! Post some pics pronto.

[deadriver]

Yeah, post the pics. Sounds like a hell of a hunt.

[Ghetto]

Yeah, I would say that you suck dick at calling when elk and coyotes are responding.


I'm kidding by the way.

[BANSnake]

Yeah I thought the same thing....Kind of disheartening when that's all you hear back. The fog slowed us down a little bit, but it was badass not seeing/hearing them until they busted through the fog right over the spread. We only used 5 floaters, one being a homemade dabbler, and 3 field decoys all week and kept the calling to a minimum. There aren't many places where you have 3.5 million acres of public hunting land with absolutely no duck pressure...there were some pissed off elk hunters though, and nobody out there understands why in the hell you would even want to hunt ducks.

[TriggerHappy]

Hey BAN, I know what you mean. I work for the Colorado Division of Wildlife and was checking in a Mountain Goat this morning and told the guy I was a duck hunter. He gave me an odd look and asked why I would waste my time on ducks when there were deer, elk, goats, sheep, etc. all around. Obviously he has never seen a group cupped, coming in, and wings whistling.

Glad you whacked em, hope you pushed them on down this way. We need some new birds, the ones around here learned where the blinds are awful fast.

[MossyOak]

Here are some pictures from the trip:

[winyah]

Awesome pics! Just curious, how long did it take you to drive out there. That has got to be a long ride.

[BANSnake]

Flew out this time but its about 2100 miles from WNC. Got a ticket to Salt Lake for $230 and did the whole trip for about $500. Not too bad and some damn fine hunting

[Mergie Master]

Good stuff Bansnake!! Great pics too! [img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]

I've never shot birds in eclipse, how hard is it to tell the hens from the drakes?

[TriggerHappy]

Mergie, I may not be as keen on waterfowl ID as BAN, but the eclipsed drakes are pretty tough. Most have a darker head even in eclipse and the breast coloration is distinctive as well. The weird part is that about half the ducks were just as green as they ever are and the other half are still eclipsed, which makes it a little confusing.

[BANSnake]

They were very hard to tell, but the big difference you could tell by was the chestnutt color starting to show through on the breast. It was weird because about 5 miles downriver from where we hunted mostly, nearly all the drakes were in full plummage. Where we hunted it was about half and half. The first couple mallards we killed out there we originally thought were hens but you could notice the more olive bill, or some of the green or brown coming through. You have to remember also that these birds are must less wary and will work a lot closer to the spread than the ducks back here so you could get a much closer look.