Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl 2 down, 1 to go

Last weekend was the ND deer opener and since we filled those tags the boys and I decided to see about filling our swan tags. They were lucky but not me so going to see what I can find one this weekend.

The boys and their birds:

Waiting for the trifecta. Well done boys.

Water, fields, decoys????

Nice.........

This past weekend it was my turn.

I located a large flock on a partially frozen slough and decided to give it a try by shifting into ultra-stealth mode to sneak through a mix of small open patches of water separated by long stretches of ice. There was roughly 200 yards worth of ice to break to get into position and some of it was so thick I had to sit on it to get it to break. It took me an hour to cover the 250 yards which got me to the edge of a screen of cattails but still left me 60 yards from the closest swan.

I waited in the reeds hoping a bird would move closer but it wasn't until another group of swans flew overhead, apparently saw me, and then sounded the alarm before that happened. When the alarm call went out the whole flock started "talking" which started off fairly quiet but kept getting louder and louder until the whole flock took to the air.

What a sight to see 100 or so swans taking flight all at the same time. As the birds got closer I picked out a large-fully white bird and told myself to concentrate on the head and not the huge body 3 feet behind the bill. At the shot from my trusty 870 the big bird folded as the 3" load of Black Cloud BBB's smacked him in the face. Even though the temperature was only in the mid-20's and I was standing in waist-deep water surrounded by ice, I was sweating from the combination of exertion caused by breaking ice and trying to keep my footing in the mucky bottom and the excitement of being so close to so many large, strikingly white birds.

Sorry for the crappy picture but had other things to attend to.


Anyway, just thought I would share my hunt as a swan isn't something everyone gets to hunt.

Man I would love to hunt swan....
We HAD a offshore blind that had 1000s of wintering swans... While they slept it looked like white trash bags floating all over the leeward side of Harris Creek...

This blind was massive.... 5 or 7 telephone in the water... What a diver blind...