Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Western Zone NY Opener-Finger Lakes/Double Black II

Quick sitrep...

In the newly constructed Double Black blind (thanks again to Eric, General Contractor for the project, and Mike O and Ernie, the flag squad), opening day was a great day of milestones. Christening the blind with the first kill was Zack Havelin, a "greenwing" youth hunter who contributed to a great morning. Zack killed the first duck of the day solo, and later contributed a Coot as well. On the dog front, the veteran McPhee and the rookie Sage took turns on the retrieves on the morning ducks (6) and then for the afternoon hunt, Sage handled the retrieving duties on her own (6). Sage did well, as this was her first real hunt, first shotgun exposure in real action, first live bird retrieves, first decoy obstacles, first duck calling, etc. A+ for both dogs and their handlers today.

The hunters today were Mike O, Cagey (yours truly), Havelino and Son, X-man (half day) and JT (half day). All told, we ended up with 12 ducks, all mallards, one Coot, and one lost Bufflehead that dove and eluded us . The beautiful thing about today was the teamwork and comraderie...the first six ducks were "pre-called" so that each individual in the blind had a chance at a solo, and every single person got one, unassisted. Awesome. A memorable opener. Over and out.

7 comments:

KGT (aka Cagey) said...

Eric,

Stories please from your opener at the Moorehouse melee...

Ernie said...

Carol's report on the morehouse shoot was there must have been 20 people over there based on the amount of shooting that took place before she left for work. Eric, what was the exact count? Good to see Double Black can hold 6 people and 2 dogs all at the same time. Sounds like it was a good day. How did the boys at Wispering Pines do? What about bubby, hope you guys smoked him! Much better opener than last year, Congats!

Yeoman said...

Sounds great. I'm looking forward to getting out as well, although it looks like it will be at least a week.

On this, does anyone know where either Bismuth or Tungsten Iron 2 3/4" 20 gauge might be had? As noted below, I can't get my son to switch from our old Remington Model 11, and I can't find any non toxic shot that will work with it's old style chokes.

KGT (aka Cagey) said...

Yeoman,

Can't find bismuth ANYwhere and don't recommend tungsten iron (as hard or harder than steel) but have been very happy with Kent Matrix (tungsten polymer) which is made for use in nitro proofed doubles and older guns. You can get it at Mack's Prairie Wings.

Yeoman said...

Keith, thanks. It was the matrix shot that I had in mind, but I'd clearly confused it with the T-Fe shot. Thanks for that very valuable clarification.

I found some of the Matrix shot on Cabelas website, but not in 20. Do you have a URL for Mack's Prairie Wings?

Dr. Dirt said...

What about a picture, o ye of the fancy camera?

KGT (aka Cagey) said...

yeoman--

http://www.mackspw.com/

Ernie--

Double black can only comfortably handle five, six if someone stands on the dog deck. Whispering Pines had limited opportunities and proved unable to capitalize in key situations. Bubby also had less opportunities than did Double Black but killed two birds that we know of.