Waterfowl Weekend at Mar Don Resort 12

Seven of us descended upon Mar Don Resort on Washington's Potholes Reservoir for the first annual Outdoor Line Waterfowl Weekend. The blue bird weather we experienced in Washington the first week of hunting season rapidly deteriorated on Friday as a huge storm pushed into the Pacific Northwest, bringing with it high winds and plenty of rain. I don't need to tell you all what that means to a waterfowl hunter. We were hitting it just right!

The Meseberg's, who own and operate Mar Don Resort, recently added nine park cottages to the property and that's where we stayed. They sleep anywhere from two to seven people in each cottage and each unit has a deck overlooking the lake and a nice kitchen and sitting area. In addition to these nice cottages the resort also offers a hotel, rv hookups, a convenience store stocked with tackle and hunting supplies, a bar and grill, fish cleaning facility, duck plucking service, dock and boat launch, and laundromat. It's one stop shopping for the hunter or fisherman.

Here's cottage row overlooking Potholes Reservoir. 

The Honeymoon cottage features a hot tub on the deck. We had to promise to keep the decoys off this "pond".

Jason Thain and I stayed in this cottage that had a spacious room with a queen bed and a pull out sofa. Perfect for two hunters.

We quickly converted the living room into man town with shotguns, camo, fishing rods, and beer.

Saturday morning…time to go hunting! We jumped into the Duck Taxi operated by Levi Meseberg at Oh'Dark'Thirty and readied for a twenty minute boat ride across Potholes Reservoir to the duck hunting hidey-holes that have made this place famous.

After running well into the dunes in the jet boat we all thought we were "there". Not yet guys…Levi had left an air boat on the beach early in the morning to take us deep, deep into the dunes where the birds had been holding. The lake has been pretty low for this time of year and accessing the productive hunting areas was only possible with a piece of machinery like this one. Levi designed this boat himself and after having someone build the hull he put the rest together himself.  It's powered by a 502 big block Chevy…saweet!

Here's Levi running over one of the dunes in the air boat. This goes well beyond just a duck hunting trip folks…this is some good stuff right here!

Myself and four of the other hunters were on the guided hunted hunt with Levi and got the pleasure of hunting over his black labrador retriever Calvin on Saturday.

We got a LOT of shooting in the morning from our blind and five of us put sixteen birds on the ground. There were some great shots and some poor shots…early season shooting at it's finest. One drake mallard hit the dekes feet down and locked up at fifteen yards and fifteen shots later flew out the other end of the dekes unscathed. Nick Kester from All Star Charters summed it up…"Really! You've got to be kidding me!" Some great laughs in our blind and the same was going on over in the non-guided with my dad and his hunting partner Frank.

At 11:00 a.m. the birds quit flying and Levi broke out the duck kabobs and the barbecue. We feasted on Mar Don's trademark duck kabobs in the blind and laughed about the mornings hunt. The Mesebergs have the guided hunting program absolutely dialed in!

Tony and Jason feasting on kabobs.

The gang at the air boat prior to heading back to the resort for happy hour and football. 

Unloading the Duck Taxi back at the Mar Don marina. Those net pens in the background are full of rainbow trout. That's where the walleye congregate in the winter months, making a great cast and blast opportunity. I'll be back for that.

Jason with our mixed bag of ducks from Saturday's hunt. The early season is comprised of mostly local birds and you've got the opportunity to shoot seven different species.

We all met up at The Beach Bar and Grill on Saturday night for steak dinner and drinks. I dispersed the schwag from Hunter's Specialties, Outdoor Emporium, Buck Gardner calls, and Stihl Chainsaws in the bar over drinks before dinner. All the guys got Pro Series double reed HS duck calls, HS lanyards, HS camo face paint, camo hats from Outdoor Emporium and Stihl and we did the ol' name in the hat program to disperse two HS floating shotgun cases, two HS blind bags, an HS duck blind, and Buck Gardner duck call. A pretty good haul for all the guys that joined us this weekend at Mar Don.    

Levi and his guiding partners had been scouting a couple of local fields and had some good, no GREAT news for Sunday's hunt. Canada Geese had been piling into one of their local fields and they didn't have to ask us twice. We met Levi and Mike Meseberg at the Mar Don store at 5:00 a.m. and headed for the field with the excitement and anticipation of honker hunting fresh on the mind.

Levi knew the exact area the geese had been using and after moving the gear around to get things juuuuust right in the wee hours of the morning we were locked and loaded and ready for action. The second Levi said, "OK guys, the geese should start coming anytime now" I looked up and the first group was locked up and heading for our spread. Wow!

Levi strategically placed the 80 deke spread along the edge of the field and the layout blinds were well concealed nearby. Hammer time!

We had flock after flock of geese crashing the dekes all morning and at one point a cyclone of approximately 300 to 400 honkers…post publish edit…make it twice that number….were locked up on the dekes. I shot video of this goose hunters dream…check it out below.

By 10:00 a.m. we had nine limits of geese on the ground and it was time to pack up the gear and head home. Sound planning and meticulous attention to detail is what it takes to put up numbers like this. Like I mentioned earlier, the Mesebergs live, eat, and breath waterfowl hunting and have this place wired. All of us were extremely impressed by their professionalism, knowledge, and demeanor. You simply couldn't hunt with nicer folks.

Nick Kester and I with our limits of Canada geese. Notice the Columbia Super Wader Widgeon jackets, the most well thought out hunting jacket on the market. I'll be wearing this jacket for a long, long time. Check out the new Omni-Heat Wader Widgeon jacket from Columbia.   

The last time I hunted at Mar Don was over 25 years ago and this weekend just reinforced the great memories of hunting and staying at the resort with dad when I was a kid. Now all I can think about is making another trip back to the Potholes in November when the northern's begin to show up. The hunting addiction never ends.

One last big thanks to the folks that joined me at Mar Don for Waterfowl Weekend. You guys all made this such an enjoyable weekend. The laughs, the stories, and sharing in yet another outdoor adventure is what it's all about. Thank you very much!

Before you leave don't forget to check out the air boat video below. Good stuff!

Podcasts:

Post-hunt recap from Waterfowl Weekend: 

Live from the blind at Mar Don

Rob Endsley
The Outdoor Line
710 ESPN Seattle
www.theoutdoorline.com