BlueBeak
Senior Refuge Member
Doing some quick math I realize I have made it thru 50 duck seasons since starting at age 14 (legal age to hunt small game in NY at the time). Thinking about all the experiences and things I have seen over 50 years is actually quite humbling. Thought it would be good to share a few memories with the NY Fuge and invite everyone to do likewise. I remember nearly freezing to death sitting in a homemade blind on Seneca Lake in December. Watching my dad retrieve a bluebill and rearrange his home-made decoys. I still have the blind and the decoys. They are marked 1952 on the bottom. We hunted in Montezume Refuge as well back then and I still have my Duck ID course card that you needed to get into the refuge. My first banded duck was from a redhead shot on Keuka Lake. It was foggy and small flocks would rip by then suddenly re-appear over the decoys from the fog. I remember a solo hunt when I lost a bufflehead to a Snowy Owl who needed it worse than I did. Watching Kingfishers and salmon and muskrats and beavers play in the decoy spread was always a good way to pass time during a lull. A deer swam thru the decoys once after she had swam across Irondequoit Bay. An Eagle tried to take a decoy once and another time a hawk tried to join us in our blind. One morning a heron tried to land on my layout boat just before shooting light. Scarred us both pretty good and he left me a trail of the stinkiest stuff you could ever imagine on the bow and shoreline. I had to smell it all morning. Shot a few more bands and some were from remarkable distances like Alberta, Manitoba. Some from local places like Sodus and Montezuma. Met some great people and some terrible people while duck hunting. Balance of nature there. Been checked by the DEC a few times and the Feds twice and they always treated me well. This could get even longer but I'd like to hear about some of your experiences. - BB
