We look forward to the WDFW’s annual “Youth hunt” with great anticipation every year. After taking a friends son out before mine was even born, I have made every attempt to make sure nothing has gotten in the way of this weekend of hunting for my son. He has been doing this hunt since 2007 and will have one more year left to participate after this. Learning how special these hunts are compared to the regular season, he also makes sure that nothing that he has going on will get in the way of these hunts. He decided that he didn’t want to hunt both pheasants and ducks this year, he would focus on ducks only. Being that Zeus is now a well-practiced bird dog, I concurred since this is his hunt, his call. He knows what this is all about by now.
Launching the boat at the Skagit Headquarters launch.
Since my son has learned the area a bit over the last few years of youth and regular season hunts, he chooses where I drive the boat to, and where he will be hunting. I answer any questions, but the decisions are his. The first spot we set up didn’t turn out too well. Plenty of birds, but they would close very well. During the youth hunt my son has come to expect ducks to be back-peddling over the decoys. He was planning to hold out for an all drake limit again this year but the lighting was making it tough. Didn’t help that the ducks were not making it easier for him to ID them. So after a bit we picked up the set and moved, something that is often necessary to bag birds in Skagit delta hunts. Didn’t take too long after moving and he put his first bird on the ground, with Zeus out to make the retrieve.
Even though my son is now 14, youth hunt means lots of snacks. We did this when he was much younger to make sure it was always fun. Zeus knows this also, as you can see here; Zeus was enjoying a bear sausage stick.
Zeus bringing in another one of my son’s ducks.
As you can see, with the summer plumage not quite finished, it’s pretty hard to tell that this duck is a mallard drake.
The hunter waits. Looking closely you can see that is not a mallard drake laying there, but a merganser drake (known as a “sawtooth” in duck hunter circles). A duck not on most guys bag list, but he was quite fascinated by its features. They most certainly are a different duck, and as I told him, he saved quite a few salmon by bagging that bird.
Zeus intently waiting for the next batch of birds to arrive.
Zeus is defiantly getting better at retrieving birds on land that is across water from our hunt locations. I hope that helps when we are pheasant hunting along the river in Montana also.
It was time to go, we had tickets to the Silvertips opening night game that evening, so he finished out his limit with a couple of hen mallards. He defiantly worked much harder to get a limit of ducks this year. Last few years it only took an hour or two to get his seven, this year we were out for six hours on that first day. Still a good hunt, but not what he had come to expect. For those interested, we saw a flock of a couple dozen snow geese out on the bay, thought it a bit early for a sighting of snows.
Zeus bringing in the sixth duck of the day.
Last duck was a bit harder to find. My son is out helping Zeus look for it.
Sunday we got an even later start. The tide was out in the morning so with the game late the night before it worked well to arrive with more water in the delta. We might have had a duck or two by the time this picture was taken, but he fell off his stool (camo bucket). Although it appears that Zeus is wondering what the fool kid is up to, he is actually watching if he will drop that can of “beanie weinies”.
Zeus making another long retrieve.
With another drake mallard.
Always on duty, intently looking for birds.
A flock is almost in range, as you can tell he is in the ready position.
Was tough again on the second day, maybe just where we were at, a different location than we have been in the past. But he got tired of waiting on just drakes. He took a widgeon and did brain surgery on a screaming fast teal at about 5-7 yards. It would have been an impressive shot for any of us. Yes there was a BIG smile in the boat, he knew that was cool.
Six down, one to go.
Had to go out and help Zeus with a blind retrieve for the last bird of the day. Once he got in the area, it didn’t take him too long to show up with the bird in his grasp. Even though we were a couple hundred yards from the boat, Zeus must have known it was the last one of the weekend. He insisted on carrying all the way back to the boat, even though he was walking slow enough for me to keep up in the marsh full of holes and muck.
Zeus sets down and checks out the last duck of the weekend, another greenhead. Nice finish to the hunt. Once again tough day, took him five hours to get his seven ducks, unheard of for a youth hunt. But it sure was a gorgeous day to be sitting out in the marsh, getting sunburns.
My son took care of cleaning all of his youth hunt ducks this year. Now we get another big smile, this one from dad. He might even be doing the duck kabobs later. I’ll post up pics of that if they don’t disappear first.
