Uutiset - News

Opening the waterfowling season

Traditionally, our posse heads out to the East to open the hunting of waterfowl. So this year too, I drove about 3 hours to get to our destination and was met by my friends, just as excited to be there as I was. I had my 4-year-old GSP and my 6-month-old labrador with me - and my trap gun. I left my side-by-side home, as I have just had it repaired and I´m saving it for the landfowling.

As in previous years, the opening day was way too nice and warm - but this year there seemed to be more of us out there. I counted about 20 something people, when we got our licences. But the area is so big, that we had no trouble in finding just the place for us. Typically, the waterfowl come to the water twice a day to feed - early in the morning and again closer to the sunset. Our morning started with a 3.30 a.m. wake up call and we were at the hunting grounds around 5 a.m. 

There were more birds compared to last year, and each day we got a fare share of opportunities. I got lucky already in the first evening and managed to down a mallard for which my GSP really had to work to get. He then showed some signs of limber tail syndrome - quite surprising considering how much he has been swimming this summer, and especially the water still being pretty warm. Also on top of that, he got a wasp sting a couple of weeks ago, and I suspect he had the spike still in the wound. So the wound started to bleed.. Great... I got him some spruce resin, and it did help a little - but later in the week, the GSP would not go into the deep water, probably the salty water stung a bit - so not ideal to have him pretty much out of the game, when he was very much needed! The hunting grounds grow a lot of reeds, even more than 2-meter-high growth, impossible for a man to go into - let alone find anything.

The young lab behaved himself nicely, makes no sound and is able to spend some time doing nothing. I would have been happy with just that, but luckily I managed to down him a mallard, which fell close enough, so he got his first ever "real retrieve" - and he was super excited, as was I!! 

We would head back to camp around 9 o´clock, sleep a little, cook food, rest again and then go back at around 5 p.m. and stay until dark. Each evening we had a sauna waiting, particularly nice after some wet hours - we had those, too! 

An excellent week - hits and misses, great dogwork and lousy dogwork, nothing but really good food - and enough game, so we could have some teal or mallard steaks each evening. I also shot a pigeon, which is such a delicacy, too. And even a couple of fillets to freeze for the winter.

Lead ammunition is forbidden in waterfowling. I was shooting both copper, steel and tungsten - and as you know, the last two are a lot more expensive than steel. And the truth is: if you are shooting within a reasonable distance, steel kills just as effectively. I had a 32 gr load, that too quite enough. Having a competition gun meant I had about 4 kg of weight to carry, it was ok - obviously duck hunting hardly involves walking long distances. It does become an issue when landfowling, so note to myself: get out the side-by-side and go training!!

I will post some pics next week - so come back for some images from a great season opening!!