- Details
- Category: Waterfowl
- Published: Sunday, 11 December 2016 10:11
- Written by Greg
It's a Plane, No it's...
This year all three of us boys drew swan tags. Unfortunately work schedules and a shoulder injury would put a little bit of a damper on our hunt, but we still had a great time.
Like many others who held swan tags, we watched faithfully as the DWR posted their swan surveys online. Once the tally of visiting swans hit 40,000, we headed out to the marsh. Unfortunately a busy work schedule would keep my eldest from accompanying me and my 12 year old on this outing.
The alarm rang at 4:00 a.m., within 15 minutes we were on the road headed north. An hour and a half later we arrived at the bay, along with a few other vehicles. We quickly unloaded our gear and headed out on a long tiring hike down the dike. We hadn’t quite made it to our planned spot before the darkness of night began to give way to morning. And in the distance we could hear the whoop and woo of tundra swans, so we tossed out a couple of decoys and took cover. Patiently we waited but the only waterfowl to fly overhead were ducks. Finally two hours later we had three swans headed our way. They ended up flying right over the top of us, but we chose not to take the long shot; instead hoping the swans would swing around and commit to our decoys, which never happened.
Decoys set, ready to go Unfortunate timing
Not ten minutes we again had swans coming toward us, this time it was a flock of ten. At 90 yards the swans were locked on our decoys, feet down! We couldn’t have been more excited and readied ourselves for a shot. But just before we could drop the hammer on them, they swung to our left and flew off. Skunked, we left without firing a single shot.
Our next outing again consisted of just the two of us. But this time there was a lot of pressure from hunters who lined the dike every 150 yards. However unlike our previous outing, we were seeing swans crisscrossing the sky in much higher quantities. With just an hour of shooting time left we had swans flying right overtop. Unfortunately they were just a little too high for a shot, but it sure was exciting! It is crazy how those huge snow white swans, flying overhead at 100 yards, can look like they are flying at half that height and at half their speed. So once they dropped into the shootable-zone, they looked like jumbo jets flying over head. And that’s what was headed our way, seven jumbo swans. Moments later a volley of steel blasts echoed throughout the marsh…two swans down!
Woodie made a great water retrieve on this swan Fun time out in the marsh