waterfowler.comJOURNAL

VOLUME 6 | ISSUE NUMBER 21 | SPRING 2014 | Factory Decoys | Sink Box Tradition | The Duck Shack |

waterfowler.comJOURNAL

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SITKAGEAR.COM | 877.SITKA.GR

TURNING CLOTHING INTO GEARNEXT-TO-SKIN | INSULATION | SOFT SHELL | HARD SHELL | HEADWEAR | HANDWEAR | PACKS

ROCKHOUSE MOTION

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waterfowler.com J O U R NA L

Publishing & Design

Darin M SakaS

Writers & Photographers

Clay Connor

ray J GaDD

GeorGe kuStin

BraDley raMSey

raMSey ruSSell

Darin M SakaS

SCott SakaS

Brett WilSon

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two-thousand and fourteenvolume six, issue number twenty-one

Photo By Clay Connor

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SINK BOX TRADITIONThe events that lead to the ban-ning of sink box use in America marked the end of market hunt-ing and the birth of sport hunt-ing tradtion. Join us as we step back in time and expereince this bygone tradition with Ramsey Russell in Nova Scotia, Canada.

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SILVER LININGS Brett Wilson shares his tale of a duck hunting day that was shrouded in dark clouds and bad luck. Thankfully, persistance does pay off if you are willing to search for that Silver Lining that is always a wingbeat away in southern Idaho.

18

HENRYETTEAN DECOYWhen the use of live decoys was prohibited, modern sport hunters turned to innovative crafstmen and artisans of the factory decoy. In this issue we explore the inven-tions, patents, designs and history of the family owned and operated, G&H decoy company.

26

THE DUCK SHACK For Sarah Lawer, the family duck shack on Alaska’s Cook Inlet represented a life-long family tradition. In celebration of the hunt and the fireside tales that were shared each night, Lawer Family Winery intoduces their newest label; Duck Shack.

3630 YOUNG HUNTER TALES

39 CUISINE

40 BRADLEY RAMSEY

44 SUBMISSION INFO

two-thousand and fourteenvolume six, issue number twenty-one

FeatuRes

04 CONTENTS

dePartmentS

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The 4oz. Patent Pending “Duck Egg” Decoy WeightThe 4oz. Patent Pending “Duck Egg” Decoy Weight

Our patent pending "Duck Egg" decoy weight (decoy anchor) is the most versatile and e�ective weight on the market today. The 4 oz. lead "egg" will hold your decoys to the bottom, while the looped stretch cord will stretch around the head of your blocks, at either end of the keel, around the entire keel, or even around the tail of the decoy. It's compatible with practically

any floating decoy, and is easy to use in cold weather with gloves on.

For more information and get a free sample please visit: www.blackwinghunting.com

CREATING INNOVATIVE WATERFOWL PRODUCTS TO IMPROVE YOUR HUNTING EXPERIENCE

BLACKWING ADVANCEMENTS

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George Kustinis retired but has little free time. He is a certified hunter safety instructor, bird hunter, fly fisherman, phototographer and writer for Waterfowler.com and Flyfishingmadnnes.com

Bradely Ramseyis a seasoned wordsmith and certified duck hunting addict. His most recent creative endeavor is crafting hand-turned, acrylic duck calls at his company B&L Outdoors with Lane Stephenson.

Scott Sakasis a 15-year old duck hunter and, like all young hunters, the future of waterfowl hunting. In this issue Scott shares the tale of his first diver hunt and the role technology plays in new traditions.

Brett Wilsonlives in Ketchum, ID, where he splits his time as a fly fishing guide and an arborist. As VP at Blackwing Advancements, he and his partner continue working on innovative duck hunting products.

two-thousand and fourteenvolume six, issue number twenty-one

WORDSMITHS

06 CONTRIBUTORS

&

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Clay Connoris a modern day renaissance man. As a writer, marketing guru, painter and skilled photog-rapher, his passion for waterfowl hunting is only surpassed by his love of the arts.

Ray J. Gaddis talented photographer who is living the high mountain dream in Idaho. From ducks to trout and bikes to skis, Ray is a four-season outdoorsman who takes his camera everywhere.

Ramsey Russellhas a passion for waterfowl hunting that exceeds words and international boudaries. From Russia to South America, he has a knack for uncovering the best duck hunting adventures.

Darin M Sakasspends the majority of his duck seasons passing on the tradition to his two teenage boys. His passion for design, photography and ducks are echoed in pages and website of Waterfowler.com.

two-thousand and fourteenvolume six, issue number twenty-one

ARTISANS&

CONTRIBUTORS 07

When describing the sport of waterfowl hunting it is common for participants to talk about tradition. In fact, the word is used so often in text and conversation the importance of the word is often subjected to diminishing returns -- by virtue of common occurrence.

As any dyed-in-the-wool duck hunter knows, the grand traditions of waterfowl hunting are anything but ordinary. The traditions are as varied as the participants, the environments where ducks are pursued and are as multi-faceted as the sport itself. By no fault of the English language, the scope of tradition is too large and too vast to contain within a single word.

Hello folks, and, welcome back to Waterfowler.com Journal.In this issue of Waterfowler.com Journal we dive into the topic of tradition head first — with reckless

abandon. Of course, traditions evolve over time and some traditions are broken. As an Internet-based com-munity, our universe of tradition is often found on the fast track of change and we adapt to meet these new challenges on an ongoing basis.

Ironically, we begin our celebration of tradition by breaking one. After an extended hiatus, Waterfowler.com Journal returns in digital-only format. Our publication will now be available for online viewing at Issuu.com and downloadable (in PDF format) for iBook and Kindle readers.

The cost savings from printing, paper and postage will be passed along to our readers and the publication will now be free. Yes, absolutely, 100% FREE of any annual subscription fee. So, by all means, please share the publi-cation through email and social media with your friends – as readership is the key to the publication’s survival.

Like the publication, we remind our readers that the interactive features on Waterfowler.com are also 100% FREE to registered users. To participate in the hunting reports, forums, classifieds and member photo-gallery, you need only register for an account and activate it through email.

While some may argue that digital publications can’t be read in a bathroom, we believe that 31% of our audience (who access our website from a mobile or tablet device) would disagree. Mobile users represent our fastest grow-ing readership segment. Their numbers have increased from a paltry 1% just two-years ago, to nearly one-third of our audience. Additionally, the digital format gives us the creative freedom to share the story of waterfowl hunting without financial constraint, page limits or reproduction standards (that limited images we could use in print). In digital format, we simply get to tell the story and try to tell it well.

We hope you enjoy the new format and we look forward to your feeback on the WFC forums.

DARIN M SAKAS

fRom THE deSK Of

08 LETTER

Ramsey Russell | GetDucks.com | P.O. Box 873 | Brandon, MS 39043866.438.3897 | ramsey@getducks.com

Argentina Duck Hunting

World-Wide Wingshootingand

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m

Dear Waterfowler.com,

I was a huge fan of your magazine

and I miss it dearly. Is there a

chance you will ever publish again?

-Bluebill030

Dear Bluebill030,

We were also huge fans of the

Journal and we’re thrilled to be

publishing again after a long

hiatus. While we had looked into

other methods of digital publishing

back in the day, the technology

just wasn’t there yet. Thanks to

advances in digital publishing and

the huge strides in smart phone

and tablet development, we feel

we can deliver the quality we had

before and make new advances

in reader interactivity. We look

forward to reading your feeback

on our forums.

* * *

Dear Waterfowler.com,

I went to rewew my membership

online and I couldn’t find place to

pay. What gives?

-Rivermaster870

Dear Rivermaster870,

Waterfowler.com is now f2p -- or

free to play as they say in the

trades. To access all the inter-

active areas on the website you

need only register a new account.

The new website has all of the old

features and a few new ones as

well. Registered members can

now post pictures in thier hunting

reports and the forums have new,

easy to use features for images

and videos.

* * *

Dear Waterfowler.com,

The migration map has changed

and I like the old one. Switch back.

-HeartlandHunter

After much deliberation, we have

upgraded the migration map and

integrated it with Twitter. As of this

writing, over 31% of our read-

ers access WFC from a mobile

device or tablet. During the duck

season, most hunters have a

mobile phone handy and Twitter is

constantly developing their app for

both Android and iPhones (at their

expense instead of ours).

To post a pin point on the map,

that will display both a mini report

and even image, you simply

#hashtag the map you want to

report to in your Tweet.

#duckhunting

#goosehunting

#snowgoosehunting

Your Tweet will plot directly to the

map if you have GEO Tagging en-

abled in your phone (ie: location

services for iPhones). We are

confident that Twitter is not getting

any smaller, and that users will

find the new map very informative.

Go t s om e t h i n g o n y o u r m i n d ? Dr o p u s a n ema i l t o d a y .

{ letters from you }

08 MAILBAG

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m

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high quality gunning dEcoys

ROUGE seriesRelying on the quality design and manufacturing process that rocketed our full-bodied decoys to popularity amongst hard-core goose hunters, DOA DECOYS introduces our new ROUGE SERIES floating decoys. These gunning decoys feature a recessed hexagonal keel,which provides maximum movement in the slightest wind or current, have movable heads and boast our exclusive, durable paint process that provides unrivaled realism.

For more inFormation, visit us online today a: doadecoys.com or call

515-259-3251

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m

Ramsey Russell is an Adventure Consultant and proprietor of GetDucks.com. While some professional titles are given, in Ramsey’s case it was earned through a lifetime passion for all things duck and duck hunting. Inpired by all the grandeur and romance found in a Hemmingway novel, Ramsey’s love for duck hunt-

ing grew beyond the family duck spots in Mississippi and he embarked on an epic trail of international travel to pur-sue ducks around the globe.

His passion for ducks is only surpassed by his genu-ine enthusiasm to share his knowledge and inspire other waterfowl hunters. Ramsey loves to talk ducks. To describe

him as a walking compendium of duck hunting knowledge is an understatement at best, yet he still considers himself a student of the art.

When Ramsey stumbled into an opportunity to go gunning from a traditional sink box in Nova Scotia he jumped at the chance. From a historical perspective, the

12 SINK BOX

SINK BOXHiSTory, Politics anD

Modern Day AdventureB Y D A R I N M S A K A S &

P H O T O S B Y R A M S E Y R U S S E L L

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sink box represents then end of the marketing hunting era and the birth of waterfowl-hunting as we know it today.

By the end of the 19th century, duck populations were dwindling and some species were on the fast track to extinction. The 20th century dawned with a revolu-tion for conservation and the

true heroes of our tradition emerged as political savants.

While imperfect in many ways, the power of our repre-sentative democracy keeps our federal republic function-ing. Regardless of where you draw the line between good government policy and med-dling, the roots of modern waterfowl hunting were born

from politics, regulation and a belief that sustainable wildlife populations were more impor-tant than profit.

The transition from market hunting to sport hunting was nearly a 20-year political battle that was fueled by passion and political maneuvering as much as any Washington headline today. The politics began with

FEATURE 13

14 SINK BOX

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sport hunters gathered in op-position. Market hunters, be-ing upstanding businessmen and the job creators of the day, battled for their rights to harvest natural resources. In Washington, conservationists and their sportsmen lobbies jockeyed for appointments and congressional support to protect wildlife from a harvest rate that exceeded species sustainability.

cians by others. Waterfowl, being creatures of habit that crossed jurisdictional bound-aries, were also a source of interstate commerce and the perfect political storm of the early 1900s.

On one side of the political coin were market hunters who pursued dwindling popula-tions of waterfowl for profit and on the other side of the coin, conservationists and

the Lacey Act of 1900 (which banned the trade of illegally taken wildlife, fish and plants) and culminated with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (which sought addition-al, continental protections for wildlife that traveled beyond state and national borders).

Not surprisingly, the fore-fathers of conservation poli-cies were deemed visionaries by some and meddling politi-

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upheld treaties as the “law of the land” which trumped state-level concerns.

As such, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act ended the days of market hunting tradition and spawned the birth of sport hunting. Methods that offered a proven, unfair advantage to the hunter and the spirit of fair chase were outlawed – including the use of a sink box in the United States.

tually abandoned, lead to the drafting of the Migratory Bird Treat Act of 1918 (MBTA).

The political process, operating in full swing then as it does today, resulted in a Supreme Court challenge of the MBTA by the State of Missouri in Missouri vs Hol-land. The court ruled the MBTA constitutional within the limits of Article VI Clause 2 (the supremacy clause) and

After passage of the Lacey Act of 1900, which suffered enforcement issues, congress stuffed the wildly unpopular Weeks McLean Law onto the Agricultural Department appropriations bill in an attempt to provide enforcement provisions at the federal level. It was political drama at it’s finest. The bill, which was largely unsupport-ed, poorly worded and even-

are on the deck and in your face. As you can see from his collection of images, the accomodations are quaint, the sea food is divine and the scenery breathtaking. For more information, visit GetDucks.com today.

If we have sparked your interest in the history of conservation and dawn of sport hunting, we highly recommend expanding your outdoor library with, “How Sportsmen Saved the World; The Unsung Conservation

16 SINK BOX

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Sink box hunting remains legal in areas of eastern Canada. Hunters looking for a chance to experience that bygone tradition have an opportunity to get eye-to-eye with sea ducks along the Nova Scotia shore.

How cool is that? Very. Just call Ramsey Russell and ask him. As we said, he likes to talk ducks and his company offers travel packages that will get you standing in open water and swinging your gun on fast flying sea ducks that

Efforts of Hunters, by E Donnall Thomas. It truly is a great read and important to the foundations of waterfowl hunting today.

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18 FEATURE

v o l u m e s i x , i s s u e t w e n t y - o n ew a t e r f o w l e r . c o m

It is said that bad things hap-

pen in “threes”. I’ve never been

much for superstition, but after

surviving multiple triple-crisis phe-

nomena, I’m a believer. For the

past few years, right in the thick

of duck season, my stars have

consistently arranged themselves

in a fashion that leaves me victim

to an auto accident, an un-as-

sociated physical injury, and an

at-home implosion of some sort.

Throughout these ultimately trivial

plights, though, I’ve come to fully

understand a grand lesson: Every

dark cloud does, indeed, have a

silver lining.

The dark clouds on this par-

ticular day last December would

usher the first of the three de-

bacles, and they were tumbling

across the central Idaho desert

in a hell of a hurry on a sturdy

v o l u m e s i x , i s s u e t w e n t y - o n e

BY BRETT WILSONIMAGES : RAY J GADD

SILVERLININGSSOUTHERN, ID

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southeast wind. I was at my

arborist job that morning, trim-

ming trees with frozen fingers

and scraping a snow-dusted,

asphalt driveway with bare

Black Cottonwood branches as

I dragged them to their demise

in a painfully noisy chipper. As

I put the pole saw to a sturdy

limb, seven mallards dressed

in their fall finest rocketed over

the naked tree and up the river

corridor. I wasn’t sure what was

more torturous at this point—en-

trapment indoors at a cubicle

desk, or having to work amidst

the tangible tease of winter’s

spit on a duck day such as this.

At any rate, my fingers weren’t

wrapped around a warm shotgun

barrel, and I was pouting harder

by the minute. And then, some-

thing magnificent happened—our

workday was cut short by “in-

clement weather.”

An hour later, my wing

buddy, Danny, and I were charg-

ing south out of the valley in my

little red Ford Ranger, crack-

ing through shelled peanuts as

the defroster struggled to keep

up with the excited pant of my

lab-setter mix, Emma Jane. The

floor heat burned our toes as we

watched the vehicle in front of us

hurl an inch of slosh off the high-

way into the ditch. We would

have the water to ourselves for

the remainder of the day, and

the latest flight of mallards and

widgeons would be eager to

crowd our leeward eddy of the

wind-whipped river.

After a quick stop at Guffy’s

gas station for Red Man, pret-

zels, and 3-shot, we were on

the home stretch of wet-black

pavement and then onto the

grid of bouncy gravel roads that

navigates us around a mean-

dering playground of a spring

creek. We pulled into a willow-

lined fishing access to survey

the float of birds, deemed our

upstream blind likely to be more

productive, wheeled around, and

headed back west along the icy,

brush-tunneled drive. As the

willows thinned at the unmarked

intersection I had turned a thou-

sand times before, I noticed a

dark speck in my left peripheral

that did not belong. Our perfect

afternoon’s demise was headed

right for us.

I do not know if each auto-

motive model has its own re-

spective Grim Reaper, but the

fact that the northbound vehicle

with locked brakes was a death-

black Ford Ranger leads me

to believe this is so. What I

do know for certain is that the

actual crash took more time

than I would have ever believed

was possible in an auto acci-

dent. Upon the realization of

imminent disaster, myself and

the other driver were still at least

50 yards apart, and neither of

us was breaking any land speed

records. I remember cussing

aloud, bracing for impact, and

then enduring a lengthy silence

that afforded me time to floor

the gas pedal. The wheels

kicked and bucked at the frost-

bound gravel and pushed the

s i l v e r l i n i n g s - c o n t i n u e d

FEATRTUE 21

they don’t make them like they

used to,” and got no response

from the weathered men of the

desert soil. I immediately at-

tributed the disinterest in humor

to our apparent language barrier,

but when another truck pulled up

and released their straight-lipped

employer from its cab, I decided

it was more likely a flagrant ter-

ror of the man in charge.

The stout man puffed his

chest under his worn Carhardt

Jacket, glared through all of us

from under his pristine cowboy

hat, focused his eyes on me and

demanded, “What in the HELL is

going on here?” Knowing that

cab out of the way, offering up

the driver’s side of the box to the

hell-bent Ranger Angel of Death.

I exchanged a look of woeful ac-

ceptance with the potato farmers

(yes, we’re in Idaho) as the trucks

neared collision, and then Danny,

Emma, and I jolted with the loud

“CRACK” of plastics and fiber-

glass shattering to the frozen wind

of our snow-blown duck day.

As all occupants evacu-

ated the vehicles to survey the

damage, I was surprised to see

shredded fiberglass at the side

of my truck, instead of bent

steel. I cracked a weak joke

along the cliché lines of, “I guess

22 FEATURE

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tore the cab apart, looking for the

key to unlock my spare wheel, but

came up with nothing (I still wasn’t

wholly familiar with this ranger,

which had replaced the Toyota

Tacoma I had flipped upside-down

in the previous year’s triple-crisis

phenomenon). As we pulled off

the gravel to race back up the

valley before the tire’s inflation

expired, a huge flock of birds

bombed out of the snowy heav-

ens, over the road, and banked

back to the creek. It was a quiet,

sad ride to our local Les Schwab

Tire Center.

But like I said earlier, every

cloud has its silver lining. When

we got to the shop, the first

if I didn’t match his ego right off

the bat he would walk all over

Danny and me, I shook my bit-

ing anxiety and retorted with a

snide, “It seems we’ve had a bit

of an accident…sir.” That was

as far as the small talk went,

which was fine with me—I fig-

ured I’d save the niceties for the

inbound Sheriff and my insur-

ance agent who probably has a

red flag next to my name on her

client list nowadays.

While recounting the series

of events with a jolly Sheriff, I

noticed my left rear tire slowly

hissing air from a crack in the

rim, and I knew there would be

no salvaging an evening shoot. I

s i l v e r l i n i n g s - c o n t i n u e d

FEATURE 23

24 FEATURE

representative we spoke to was

a die hard duck hunter himself,

and upon hearing our plight, he

rushed my truck into the bay,

mounted a replacement wheel,

tossed me the keys, and sent us

on our way, waving payment for

later business on the honor sys-

tem that small towns still operate

on. I called my local insurance

agent, reported the accident,

and had my claim promptly

recorded without being put on

hold. Suddenly, we were back

in the saddle. An hour later, I

was hunkered on a plate of eddy

ice, amidst the dead cattails,

watching Danny fold winter mal-

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s i l v e r l i n i n g s - c o n t i n u e d

lard after winter mallard into a

clump of decoys as they bobbed

in the wind and tugged at the

current. Had our adventure

unfolded more smoothly, I would

have felt inclined to shoulder

my scraped and bruised 870

Express more aggressively, but

I had already seized my Zen

for the day. Right at a fire-pink

and blood-orange winter dusk, a

bold drake widgeon rounded our

setup, pointed straight into the

wind, and offered his feet and

sprig to Danny’s over-under heir-

loom. The bird closed up and

splashed right at his feet, and

as his jubilant grin widened his

mustache, I knew we were both

exactly where we were supposed

to be, and that we had got there

exactly the way we were sup-

posed to get there.

You see, in the desert paradise

of south central Idaho, plans get

fouled just like they do anywhere

else. But here, crisis recovery is

still hastened by a communal effort.

Mechanics aren’t all thieves, insur-

ance agents really are your friends,

farmers are still leather-handed, the

police exist to protect and serve,

and the ducks decoy as eagerly

as they did the days Hemingway

hunted these waters.

Oh, and as for the remaining

two episodes of this particular

trilogy of cataclysms, the follow-

ing weeks brought a broken leg

from snowboarding and a burst

water pipe in my house, which

destroyed a handful of valuables.

Fortunately, I had an auto insur-

ance claim check to survive on

while I couldn’t work, and I had

purchased renters insurance in

the midst of the car accident being

processed. Whatever catastro-

phes the coming waterfowl sea-

son brings, ‘Me and my smashed-

up Ford Ranger will be ready.

26 DECOYS

AMERICAN INGENUITY& THE FACTORY DECOY

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m

BY GEORGE KUSTIN

During the early 1930’s, marketing hunting traditions were fast being replaced by regulation and the methods and mindset of the modern waterfowl hunter were in their infancy.

In 1933 the Bureau of Bio-logical Survey, reduced the number of live decoys that could be used while hunting to twenty-five and by 1935 live decoys were banned completely. During his short tenure with the Bureau of Bio-logical Survey, Roosevelt ap-pointee, Jay Norwood ‘Ding’ Darling, helped structure the Migratory Bird Hunting Act in 1934 and the duck stamp program was born.

In the midst of the Great Depression, in the small min-ing and oil town of Henryetta, Oklahoma, John J. Gazalski and his father-in-law, Jesse Vernon Hutton began produc-tion of the first shell, goose decoy – the HENRYETTEAN.

While the decoy was constructed out of necessity by the live decoy ban, the name of the shell-style decoy was a result of happenstance and a little luck from the U.S.

Postal Service. As the tradi-tional story is told, by virtue of limited distribution and word-of-mouth marketing, a goose hunter from Illinois wrote a letter to his local postmas-ter, asking him to deliver a message to the Henryettean Decoy Company, as he was interested in their decoys but had no way of contacting them. Eventually the letter found it’s way to John and Jesse and they adopted the name for the decoy style and later solidified their business partnership as G&H Decoys.

While both John and Jesse were avid waterfowl hunters, John was a me-chanic by trade and an inven-tor at heart. During the early years of G&H Decoys, John Gazalski had applied for and was granted various patents on the intricate workings of combination field and floating decoys.

His patent drawings are not unlike those of Leonardo Da Vinci’s, in that they offer a glimpse into the mind and soul of the inventor. In pat-ent application US 2536736 A, John writes, “The inven-

tion comprehends a decoy which can be anchored on land or anchored and floated in a marsh or on water, and also .a knock-down duck or goose decoy of the above interchangeable or combined anchoring characteristics whereby either or both of said anchoring means may be employed independently or simultaneously, respectively, when in use, or the entire structure knocked down and all parts conveniently housed within the hollow body of the decoy for stacking or tele-scoping for easy carrying and to render the same more compact and to occupy less space for transportation, ship-ment or storage.”

In a less legal definition, removable and stackable decoy features were on the mind of the earliest decoy inventors – especially ones that were never faced with carrying decoys to the field because live birds waded or waddled on their own.

Through the years John followed his passion for in-vention and waterfowl hunt-ing, obtaining patents for

FEATURE 27

v o l u m e s i x , i s s u e t w e n t y - o n e

28 DECOYS

snap on heads, swivel heads and even specialized de-coy anchors that secured to weighted keels.

As one would imagine, the apple didn’t fall far in the fam-ily tree and three generations later, the privately owned family business continues – including new patents for animated decoys and field accessories.

In many ways G&H De-coys embodies the essence of American ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit. For three generations, they have delivered quality products to waterfowl hunters across the nation and continue to pro-duce their products here, in the good ol’ United States of America, in Henryetta, Okla-homa where it all began -- and it is, at it’s heart, a family tradition.

In America the new manufacturing tradition is outsourcing. In an effort to meet consumer demands for lower pricing while maintain-ing sustainable profits, many manufactures have pursued offshore production as a solu-tion. In recent years many

have found that it can also create just a many problems. From annual production schedules to quality issues and rising costs, manufactur-ing in Asia isn’t the golden egg it was once thought to be.

As G&H works to buck the new tradition of offshore manufacturing, they have stuck to the traditions that began the company in 1934 – quality, ingenuity and water-fowl hunting necessity. While many new hunters overcome the barrier of entry into the sport with economy decoys, there are an equal number of hunters pitching ten to fifteen year old G&H swivel heads into the spread, that still bare their original paint. At the end of the day, decoys are a personal choice – but only a few will last long enough to become a tradition.

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m

FEATURE 29

v o l u m e s i x , i s s u e t w e n t y - o n e

30 DIVERS

First Diver Huntb y s c o t t s a k a s

My dad has a funny way of saying “mergansers.” He calls them “mer-gan-eezers.” He blames it on an old friend from Alaska and tells the story about how his friend shot his first duck. His friend was very proud of his duck and raced back to the house with it to show his dad. When he showed his dad the duck, his dad said, “That’s a very nice bird son, but we don’t shoot ducks with teeth.”

Old guys, like my dad, tend to tell the same story in the duck blind over and over. I don’t know if it is because he is forgetful or if the stories he tells

just mean a lot to him. Either way, I just couldn’t relate to the story because I’d never seen a merganeezer – ever! At our marsh we have puddle ducks. I’ve shot mallards, teal, wood ducks, widgeon and gadwall. We sometimes get black ducks and pintail but I’ve never shot one.

Anyway, this past year our marsh was bone dry. The drought was bad and we were stuck for a place to hunt. My dad decided to take my friend, Gavin, and I to Wisconsin to a big lake to hunt divers. He said the drought would do us good and I’d finally learn how to hunt

public land and “freelance.”The lake was a much

longer drive and he said it would be a long walk to the hunting spot. My friend slept over but we actually didn’t sleep much. We were both excited and I’m sure we didn’t fall asleep until after midnight. My dad woke us up at 2:30 a.m. and we left the house by 3:00 a.m.

On the drive I listened

PHOTOS : DARIN SAKAS AND STEVE DAVIS

DEPARTMENTS 31

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m t a l e s f r o m y o u n g h u n t e r s

to music on my phone and played a few games to kill time. When we got to the lake, we suited up at the parking area and prepared for the long walk to the hunting spot. My dad divided the decoys into three bags so we could share the load. We walked down to the edge of the lake near the boat ramp and then followed the shoreline nearly a mile to the public hunting area. My dad said we had to stay below the high water mark to avoid trespassing. The water was very shallow on this side of the lake and we had to walk in it most of the way. My boots sank in the sandy mud and it didn’t take long to work up a sweat.

When we arrived at the far corner of the lake my dad has us set up the de-coys. He showed us how to set a “j-hook” pattern down the shoreline and he said the wind was perfect for our spot. The wind was blowing from right to left. There was

a group of blue bill decoys to our right and then the long line of them ran to the left.

Along the edge of the lake were willow trees and their

big roots grew into the water. They made perfect seats.

We got our guns ready and tucked the cases back on shore. I heard wings and two birds splashed into the de-coys as we messed around

on shore. I looked over at my dad and he laughed, “10 min-utes to shooting… just ignore them, they’ll be more.”

By the time we were in our spots, with bags and ammo ready, it was shoot-ing time and my dad told us to load up. I scanned the sky

for ducks, as always do. It wasn’t long into shooting when my dad said, “Here they come boys… on the left.”

I strained my eyes as I scanned the sky. I couldn’t see them. My eyes darted back and forth trying to pick them up when my dad shout-ed, “Take ‘em!”

My dad shouted again, “Take ‘em!”

No shots were fired. My eyes dropped to the decoys where a half-dozen white bodies flared. When they got

32 DIVERS

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m t a l e s f r o m y o u n g h u n t e r s

above the water they were easier to see in the sky. I shouldered my gun to swing on them but they were already out of range.

My dad was laughing hysterically as the birds hightailed it to the center of the lake. He looked over towards Gavin and said, “Boys, were diver hunt-ing. They’ll be on the deck, low and fast. Keep your eyes on the water and just above it.”

Like I said, I hunt puddle ducks. To me, ducks drop from above not below. This was going to be a new game. I didn’t have much trouble spotting the next group. The sun was starting to rise be-hind us. The white bodies of the next group seemed to glow against the dark water and sky. They were easy targets, I thought.

Just before the ducks reached the decoys the dropped from about 10-feet in the air to less than a foot off the water. They started to fol-low the line of decoys into the

spread and my dad, again, shouted, ‘Take ‘em!”

My first shot splashed on the water, far behind the duck I was shooting at. The low flying ducks flared up from the noise and turned back to the center of the lake. I

looked over at Gavin and then my Dad. He was snickering at us both and said, “Safety check.”

I checked my safety and reloaded. My dad has drilled that into my head. Anytime shots are fired the first words out of his mouth are, “Safety Check,”

and those words are almost always followed by advice.

“Flare them early. Even though they look like they have turned and are going straight out to the lake they are still sliding right. Think about fighter jets. Just be-cause the nose is pointed in the direction they want to go, it takes a while for the engine to beat gravity and momen-tum. Keep swinging the gun to the right.”

It’s not that I mind the advice but parents seem to forget they got that advice by doing (in most cases, by doing it wrong). Instruction helps but you have to do things sometimes to understand the instruction. As luck would have it, I got that chance today.

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34 DIVERS

phones while hunting but I guess that’s how us kids tell stories in the duck blind. My friends think the pictures are cool and a lot of them would like to come hunt-ing someday.

The flights of birds disappeared as the sun got higher in the sky. As we sat there making lunch plans I heard a honk down the shoreline. A lone goose was flying straight towards us over the water. Just before

it reached our spread the goose turned over the trees above me. I pulled up on it and my first shot exploded a bunch of branches and the second folded it. The giant goose fell through the trees and hit the ground with a thud.

Gavin and my dad where laughing and shaking their heads. My dad looked at me and said, “I can’t believe you hit that. Good shot.”

I just looked at my dad with a big smile and said, “Safety check.”

My dad and uncle com-plain a lot about using cell

Ducks came, group af-ter group. It took a while to get on them but we did, even if it took nearly a box of shells.

The first group we dropped ducks out of were hooded “mergan-eezers”. Yes, ducks with teeth. I got to hear the story again and also learned that mergansers are not even included in your duck limit (yes!). By mid morning, we had shot a mixed bag of mergansers, bufflehead, bluebill, ringed necks and even a teal.

Between the flights I posted pictures to Facebook, Instagram and sent some to my friends via text. I also sent them to my brother to make him jealous. He had to miss the hunt because of a school thing. Ha!

With the number of ducks we saw my brother really wanted to meet us there and hunt the evening. He con-vinced my uncle to come out and I sent him a Map Link via text to find us.

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[i t ’s j u s t t ha t s imp le ]

36 DUCK SHACK

Waterfowl hunting along the

Cook Inlet of Alaska’s frontier is

unlike and exactly like waterfowl

hunting anywhere else on the North

American Continent. On the best

of days, when the Aurora Borealis

dances over the predawn skies,

mallards, teal and widgeon hit the

blocks without hesitation. The call

of the Tule Goose, the largest and

darkest sub-species of the Greater

White-Fronted goose, can be heard

on early arctic winds as the pre-

pare for their trip to their wintering

grounds in central California.

In a region where the family

vehicle is just as likely to have twin

THE DUCK

SHACKPHOTOS : LAWER FAMILY ARCHIVES

s p r i n g 2 0 1 4

FEATURE 37

props or outboards, as it is to have

four-wheel-drive, duck hunting

tradition was born through a land

claim, that became home to the

family Duck Shack.

“Our duck shack began with

an open-to-enter program,” Sarah

began, “which meant that someone

could claim five acres in rural Alas-

ka if they had it surveyed. We laugh

in my family because our duck

shack is actually my grandmother’s

claim, but my Grandpa chose the

land. It is situated on a slough with

a shelf that allowed floatplanes to

taxi up at high tide and then sit flat

when the tide ran out. Nearby is the

Middle River, running 90 degrees

against the slough, which allows a

plane to land no matter which way

the wind is blowing.”

As a third generation hunter

along the Cook Inlet, Sarah Lawer

bagged her first teal at the age of

five, using Grandpa’s single-shot

.410 (which he had learned to hunt

with). Sarah jokes about the num-

ber of jackets she had worn that

day to soften the kick but readily

admits her fear of recoil diminished

quickly. Over the years she has

honed her shot-gunning skills and

taken her share of ducks, geese

and sandhill cranes.

“Our duck shack is true to the

genre, a simple plywood shack

set up high on stilts over the mud

flats. It is safe and dry, even at the

peak of the highest tide that runs

beneath it. Over the years, as our

family grew, my dad and uncles

would actually sleep on the support

beams underneath the shack at

night – and boy the wind can really

blow out there. The boys eventually

got their own annex later on, it’s

closer to the outhouse; but the girls’

duck shack has all the food and a

consistently burning wood stove,”

Sarah laughed.

For Sarah, the worn, plywood

Duck Shack, represented more

than a hunting spot – it was a family

gathering place. Each autumn sea-

son, family and friends would gath-

er at the shack and embark on daily

hunts, in varying groups, to every

corner of the inlet in pursuit of wa-

terfowl. At the days end, the family

would gather around the woodstove

and share the stories of duck days

past and present. Of all the stories

told, one story in particular is told

often, and never without embellish-

ment or laughter, “Our duck shack

is a place where tall tales take wing

A SPIRIT OFTRADITION

38 DUCK SHACK

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m v o l u m e s i x , i s s u e t w e n t y - o n e

and become the stuff of legend be-

tween family and friends. As family

lore goes, it was my dad who blew

up our first tar-paper duck shack!

Back then, he was a New York City

boy, new to the duck flats of Alaska,

and he unwittingly tested the limits

of an open propane tank when he

put it away for the winter – inside

the shack. Greenhorn that he was,

he must not have closed the valve

all the way, and the embers of the

old rusted wood barrel stove ignited

as the propane released. BOOM!

Luckily, no one was around when it

happened.”

Like the waterfowl they pursued,

the Lawer family ambition migrated

south over the years and they em-

barked on new a new tradition in

California Wine country. The family

managed vineyards and winery honor

their history of waterfowl hunting with

their award-winning, limited-production,

DUCK SHACK Chardonnay.

“There’s something treasured

about having a place like our duck

shack with my family. Years and

years of memories have been cre-

ated there and three generations

have hunted there; it’s a rite of

passage. Rain or shine, we suit up

for the fall hunt in mud caked hip

waders, layers and layers of cam-

ouflaged clothing, and, of course,

each of us wears a lucky hat,”

Sarah recounted.

“That’s why my mom decided to

pay tribute to this tradition with our

MARINATED DUCK BREASTS

DUCK SHACK CHARDONNAY PAIRING

Marinade Ingredients1 cup olive oil

1 cup red wine

1 cup soy sauce

½ cup chopped onion

3 tablespoons chopped garlic

3 tablespoons prepared mustard

¼ cup Worcestershire sauce

5 dashes hot sauce

Preparations: Combine ingredients and marinate desired number of duck breasts in refrigerator or ... ice chest... for at least two hours. Barbecue breasts over hot fire to sear in juices.

Our ducks never make it back home from the duck shack. David has this fabulous

marinade for duck breasts. Grilled, sliced thin and on crackers with a little mustard, they are the perfect hors d’oeuvre to celebrate the day’s hunt. And paired with our Duck Shack Chardonnay, feet up and watching the fleeting rays of sunset over mountains in the distance - life just doesn’t get much better!

duckshackwines.com

DS RACK CARD RECIPE 4X9.indd 2 7/2/12 9:07 AM

award-winning line of Duck Shack wines.

It takes a lot of hard work to grow quality

grapes that produce quality wine. The same

dedication that goes into duck hunting goes

into making a great wine – like finding the

perfect terroir, employing the right equip-

ment, and putting together a talented team

to make it call come together. If you could

bottle the good times and joy from all our

duck shack weekends for three generations,

well…that would be a the essence of what

you’ll experience when you open a bottle

of Duck Shack Wine. It’s fantastic, highly

acclaimed and a perfect complement to your

favorite duck recipe.”

As you plan your next wild game feast

with friends and family, consider serving up

a glass of tradition with Duck Shack Wine.

Duck Shack Wine remains somewhat

exclusive; estate grown in Sonoma, they

produce and market a limited number of

cases each year, which can be ordered

online at DuckShackWines.com. The Lawer

family duck breast recipe (at right) is also

available on their website along with other

pairings and labels.

This past off-season began like many others. Having slept in a few hours past o-dark-thirty, I excused myself from the family’s breakfast chaos and retreated to my study, a small portable shed in my back yard, to work on a particularly pressing project -- namely avoiding the list of projects I had promised my wife I would tackle as soon as hunting season was over. This is not to say I had not done anything on that list. I had, after all, cleared out the old tool shed and gotten the stacks of hunting gear, books and magazine out of our bedroom, den, kitchen, living room, bathroom, closets, cupboards and corners. I had also cleaned out the old shed in the process, well sort of. The truth be told, I had shoved most of the junk from the shed into one corner and moved in a small desk and a series of cinderblock and plank shelves to accommodate my menagerie of memorabilia, books and catalogs.

I was comfortably ensconced in my semi- mobile man cave perusing the titles of my waterfowl hunting library in search of a read that would help me pass the time when it leapt out at me. IT being a savage, auburn blur of fang and fur that lunged for my jugular. My hands moved instinctively, without thought or consideration as my manly survival skills kicked into full-on ninja protection mode. My left forearm swung counter-clockwise and executed a perfect ninju-jutsu, redneck-karate block that would have made a 70’s Elvis proud. Thanks to the propulsion caused by the push of the right arm, I was able to tip-toe in mid-air across the length of the shed in Crouching Coot, Tumbling-Mallard fashion – until which point my momentum

40 B RAMSEY

w a t e r f o w l e r . c o m

BRADLEYRAMSEY

ONE M O R E S W I N G

DEPARTMENTS 41

v o l u m e s i x , i s s u e t w e n t y - o n e

was halted by the said pile of debris I’d stacked in that corner earlier. After grabbing a nearby rake from the pile, with a minimal amount

of girlish-shrieking, I managed to evict the rather ferocious looking red squirrel and lower my heart rate to something close to double digits. As I kicked back in my mostly functional office chair and return to my search, I felt a light bulb go on in my head. Or, perhaps, it was going out.

I know there are a number of you who would doubt me but I can assure you, a solid, mid-sixties era, aluminum tackle box, precariously balanced on a stack of gardening tools in the rafters, can reach termi-nal velocity in less than the small space that existed between my head and the eight-foot ceiling. By some strange twist of physics it can also gain mass, carbon-weight and density at an exponential rate that is ca-pable of knocking a grown man into a semi-unconscious stupor. In this state, victims of applied gravitational theory are capable of inventing an entirely new vocabulary of cuss words in a fraction of a second. In ad-dition, these moments of clarity can also fuel highly intelligent choices, like deciding that the best way to deal with a head injury is to teach the tackle box a lesson – which in my case, resulted in me kicking it as hard as I could, knocking over a bookshelf and completing the recita-tion New Swear Words, Volume II.

Limping back to my chair, I bent over to begin reorganizing my book collection -- keeping a watchful eye on the unremorseful tackle box (now sulking on the floor in the corner) and the newly discovered rodent residence that had been revealed in the redistribution of my books.

Once satisfied that neither the seven ton tackle box nor the el-ven pound squirrel were going to dare to take me on again, I set about rebuilding my shelves and sorting my books back into something not even remotely close to the dewy decimal system.

I considered at first arranging them by title, however after filling one entire shelf with books that started with the work “Duck” I decided that perhaps topic might be a better way of organize things.

While making stacks loosely grouped into subjects such as dogs, decoys, blinds, tactics, stories, lies and total lies that I came to a

ONE M O R E S W I N G

42 B RAMSEY

realization. Well, two realizations. I was in desperate need of an aspirin and there was a glaring void in my collection of waterfowl reference material.

I had books on how to set decoy spreads for every species of duck and goose in just about every habitat I could imagine. I had books on how to train every breed of retriever, books on blind building, boat building, wood duck box building, calling, call making, reloading, clean-ing game, cooking game, taxidermy and taxonomy. But as I scanned through the titles, chapters and indexes I could not find anything on one of the most important aspects of duck hunting – choosing a hunting partner.

I had at my fingertips the knowledge of how to set a crosswind spread for sea ducks on a rock jetty, how to rig long lines for hunting in layouts along the Atlantic, how to use everyday household object to build overly complicated contraptions to create ripples on the water and save me the trouble and embarrassment of being so rudimentary as kicking my feet or chucking rocks. With the knowledge at hand, I could build a pit blind, duck boats, marsh seats and an array of camouflage systems that ranged from natural vegetation to a mirror array that prom-ised to make me like that monster in the Predator movies. But search as I might, there was not word one written about an aspect of waterfowl hunting that I dare say is as, if not more important, than all the gear, gadgets, tricks and techniques we as outdoor writers have been dron-ing on and on about since the invention of written language, how to properly select a hunting partner.

Thanks to the lucidness of my recent near-death experiences, I knew then I had unearthed my million-dollar idea! With technology having taken a firm grip on our world, I am confident I can capitalize on my brilliance and acquire enough riches to simply buy The Duck Com-mander Empire with my play money! With a quick re-prioritization of my life, I could write books on the subject, e-books even. I could start a web site like all those e-dating sites. The format would be similar but instead of cheezy, out of focus, mirror selfies the single hunter would lure in their soon to be hunting partner with pictures of boats, blinds and decoys. Instead of party pics of them hamming it up with their friends at

b r a d l e y r a m s e y

DEPARTMENTS 43

the local watering hole, they would post pics of themselves standing next to piles of fat greenheads or shouldering a hefty strap of geese while looking all cool as if that’s how all of their hunts went.

How perfect! With just a few small tweaks, I would change all the profile questions to work for hunting partners. Instead of “Ideal First Date”, it could be “Ideal Bag Limit”. If you saw a guy who sounded great, had a fantastic boat, his own private marsh and award winning retriever but listed his perfect limit as say, “two coots, a spoon bill, nine mergansers and a loon,” you would know right off the bat that he was not your ideal match, couldn’t count, might land you in jail or is a game warden in search of the dumbest poachers on the internet.

You could even have little quizzes that helped match you to your perfect hunting partner. Questions like: Do you snore? On a scale of one to ten how important is coffee to you? If I could only carry forty nine things in my blind bag what would they be? On a cold rainy day in mid-December I would most likely be found: A) In a rice field pit blind, B) In a layout boat on a windswept bay, C) Hunkered in the edge of a cattail marsh, or D) Sulking around the lodge complaining about the weather.

Can you imagine the relief you’d find being able to filter out the kind of hunter that makes you want to throw your gun in the swamp and take up knitting? Can you see the value in the opportunity to avoid being stuck in the middle of nowhere with some jack-wagon who insists that he hail call at every duck that comes within radar range; or boasts endlessly about their shooting, even after missing a back peddling mallard three times at less than twenty yards; or that guy who insists that, “his dog is a natural and didn’t need all that fancy training,” while you watch his hound chase shore birds along the bank and bark at any duck foolish enough to get within earshot.

Yes, I was on to something I knew it. I was franticly jotting down notes and calculating just how many boats, decoys, guns and hunt-ing lodges I intended to buy when I became the guy who launched blinddatesforduckhunters.com when my I heard the door to my study creak open.

“I just found a new way to get into the old river channel. I was

o n e m o r e s w i n g

44 B RAMSEY

going over our old log books and comparing them to my granddad’s field notes from 1956. By cross-referencing his notes with the satellite images from last year and the most recent navigation charts released by the coast guard, I’m sure this short-cut will work – but the river is falling and will only be right for us to get in there for another six or eight hours. If we hurry we can scout it for the fall and might not get trapped and have to hike 18 miles through swamp to get back to the hard road. ” an excited voice said.

I was out the door so fast it I’d almost forgot about the throbbing knot on my head from the plummeting tackle box. If you were watch-ing my spry, flurry of activity and excitement you’d swear I was hit in the head with feathers from a well-shot mallard as they filtered down over the rippling waters of a decoy spread on a windless day.

After grabbing my hip boots and cell phone, my wife appeared in the driveway – blocking my escape route to the truck. Before I could blurt out my apologetic need to spend a day on the river the first week-end after duck season ended, I was greeted with a kiss and a heartfelt “Ya’ll have fun!”

When I returned her kiss I couldn’t help but be reminded how lucky I was to have a woman that truly understood my duck hunting sickness.

As I jumped in the truck my partner explained how he had been calling me but when I hadn’t answered my phone he had called my wife, gotten me a kitchen pass and promised to have me home alive at some point. He asked me what I had been doing all afternoon cooped up in that shed. “Just sorting my books and rearranging some old fish-ing gear.” I told him, never mentioning my million-dollar idea, the squir-rel or the lump on my head.

As for the million-dollar idea, I’ve decided that the effort to solve the world’s biggest problem in duck hunting would take too much time away from duck hunting. Besides, I already had the perfect hunting partners, one in the driver seat backing his duck boat out of the drive way while the other was waving at us from the porch that still needed a fresh coat of paint -- and most likely would for some time to come.

b r a d l e y r a m s e y

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