THE PRAIRES POTHOLES WERE FILLED WITH WITH WATERFOWL

Oct 20,2013

It’s early winter as we pass the grain elevators, heading East thru Quill Lake.  The freight cars are  filled from this year’s bumper wheat and field pea crop being shipped to China and the Mid East.  Quill Lake is the epicenter of staging for North American waterfowl.  The Pacific, Central and Mississippi flyways intermingle in this vast basin lake, easily spotted from satellite. 

This year, the juvenile Arctic Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens ), increased yet again…the diminishing ice sheets provides for nesting and feed.  Before the 1960's, the population was kept in check by nest predation by local Inuits for protein and a booming demand for down and poor wintering sanctuary .  The bird population explosion began in the early 1980’s is a man-made phenomenon.  Climate change, man-made refuges, and Nixon’s embargo of the wheat crop opened up fence-row to fence-row farming in the Canadian prairies.  The result: snow geese and arctic geese populations are booming, so much so that Quill Lake locals in their 70’s remember when it was rare to see a snow goose 40 years ago. compared to the millions of birds today in the fields eating the grain stubble in fall 2013.  

 

The Quills are part of the prairie pothole area that extends from central Alberta down through the Dakotas in a mecca for the died-in-the-wool waterfowl hunter.  The ducks also have been impacted by man-made changes.  When the Canadian prairies were planted in spring wheat and canola to feed the world population, farmers drained many of the prairie potholes essential for duck reproduction.  Farmers also tilled the grasslands that were the nesting sites, and the duck populations began to decline.  Hunters began to support DU Canada to acquire nesting-site easements on sensitive lands around remaining potholes.  Due to the few remaining potholes, the duck populations were more concentrated.  In years past, weather was less important.  Massive amounts of rain/snow in winters of 2011 and 2012 filled all remaining potholes, resulting in duck populations approaching the 1950’s.  But that situation could change from year to year with the weather.  Thus the fluctuation in duck populations year to year is wholly dependent upon spring runoff amounts.

This year, I bring my Fleur-de-lys grade B carving Winchester Duck model 21 vintage 1947 with 30-inch tubes.

When Canada went to non-toxic steel shot, the barrel master Stan Baker of Seattle reconfigured the tube constrictions to handle non-lead shot.  It is one of the finest shooting guns I own.  I had the Stock Doctor put a leather pad on and it has become the deadliest of my water fowling pieces.

I bring a cased 1874 I. Hollis pigeon-weight, high profile hammergun with Damascus tubes, case colored timber refurbished by Doug Turnbull and David Yale respectively.  There is a period Silver's pad and Keith Kercher redi did the Damascus in stunning black and white.  My eldest son and I acquired this gun in ChristChurch on our trip to New Zealand several years ago.  Its drop and length of pull (LOP) combine to make this a deadly upland gun for the grouse and later in the trip, Dakota pheasants. 

Cased also is my Model 53 french-grade Side Lock Ejector 20-bore, made in 1967.  It is a perfect weapon for fast-flushing Huns and grouse over my hunting dogs. 

And lastlya Browning Schnabel fore end English-stocked Citori 28 gauge.  Ellen, my wife of 34 years, presented me with it on my 40^th birthday.  

Last but not least, there is the Paris made Faure LePage y Fils 12 bore with 27.5 in tubes.  A French best side lock ejectors with gold washed locks hidden bite articulate triggers and  barrels inscribe inoxyable Jacbob Holtzer.

The Hunt

 

We go from the extreme southwestern Saskatchewan all the way northeast to the Cumberland House and Hudson Bay.  We camp, hunt both upland and waterfowl and the dogs around the campfire are in cannine heaven.  In over 7 weeks this 2013 we put on 4,900 miles.

 I had to lie.  A prairie lie.  I was rushing Ellen to the airport for her trip back to Reno.  I stopped for a quick Tim Horton.  A large man appeared from my left as I stopped the truck.  At first, I thought it was a large Hutterite, as he was dressed in all black.  He was tall and Teutonic.   As he approached closer, I saw the royal emblem stitched on his bullet-proof vest, with a sidearm sticking out of his waste jacket.  After 23 years of hunting the prairies, I was being ambushed by a game warden in a parking lot.  ‘How’s the hunting’, he said.  I lied as I sent Ellen into Tim Horton to get doughnuts.  She wanted nothing to do with the encounter.  I quipped ‘Haven’t been hunting yet.’  He was taken aback by my answer, looking at the mud on my vehicles, the decoys on top.  The Grand Cherokee I was towing was filled with hunting equipment.  I couldn’t give him probable cause to begin the process of checking the coolers,guns,licenses etc and still get Ellen to the airport on time, and so I lied.  I resented being ambushed, and I told him I was in a serious rush to the John Diefenbaker airport.  There was a quixotic look about him when he quipped, "You'd better be goin," if you're going to make it.  I ran into the Tim Horton to retrieve Ellen she hadn't ordered.