Home
Blog
Another Mar Don Medley

Another Mar Don Medley 3

Nov 17, 2011 by Rob Endsley

This weeks adventure took us to Mar Don Resort on the Potholes Reservoir for a combination duck and goose hunt with the Meseberg's, owners of the Duck Taxi. Seven of us hit the road on Monday afternoon for two days of fun in one of the Pacific Northwest's most productive regions for waterfowl hunting. Here we go!

It's impossible to drive thru Cle Elum, Washington without stopping at Owen's Meats to grab some goodies for a hunting or fishing trip. They have a wide variety of quality smoked meats at this awesome little shop, but the lanjager is my all time favorite. The shop has been in Cle Elum since 1897 and here's one of the 5th generation of Owen's showing off what's left of the lanjager supply after we rolled thru.

Seven of us checked in at Mar Don Resort at around 6:00 p.m. on Monday night. After a quick meal at the Beach restaurant right in the resort we hit the sack early to rest up for our 5:00 a.m. departure with the Duck Taxi. Levi had already set out all of the dekes at both blinds, so all we had to do was jump out and get situated. He dropped us off first and then headed off to blind #2 with Doug Spadey from Dougs Boats, Nick Kester from All Star Charters and his lifelong buddy Rory, and Tom Nelson.

It didn't long for the action to heat up in our blind. Here's Frank Reed from Poulsbo with a nice pintail and guide Mike Meseberg in the background. I got to hunt with Frank, my dad, and Mike who is a pleasure to spend the day with.

Here's Calvin, who did all the heavy lifting in our blind. Here's the old boy in action retrieving a drake mallard.

Calvin always kept an eye out for the next group of birds heading our way.

We were fortunate to have a lot of action in our blind in the morning, with numerous flights of mallards and pintails keeping the barrels warm. By around 11:00 a.m. the action tapered off and bluebird conditions settled in and it was time to cook up some chow for our always hungry crew. Mike got the briquets going and it wasn't long before we were feeding our faces with Mar Don's famous duck kabobs. The Meseberg's are some of the best waterfowl guides in the Pacific Northwest and they also have the service end of the guiding business nailed!

With the shoot over for the day we gladly washed down the duck kabobs with some local red wine.

I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be able to take my dad and "Uncle" Frank hunting with Mike Meseberg. When I was old enough to hold a shotgun Dad brought me to Mar Don to hunt ducks in the dunes with the Mesebergs. That was in 1980!

The four of us ended up downing 26 mallards and pintails in our blind on Tuesday morning and, as usual, there were plenty of ducks that got away. More great memories made on this trip!

Capt. Nick Kester is always along on these hunting trips. He's a salty old bugger like the rest of us!

Now that the work is complete it's time to spoil the dogs!

Walleye anyone? We capped off an incredible day of hunting by fishing for walleye off the dock at Mar Don in the evening. Pops was lucky enough to nab this whopping six pounder on a swim bait that Levi had set us up with. We had quite a few more bites and both dad and I each lost a nice walleye apiece before we called it quits. The Mar Don dock used to be open to the public, but after numerous problems with vandalism and burglary it's now only open to guests staying at the resort. Welcome news if you're headed over for some hunting!

Wednesday morning found us in the goose field watching a beautiful sunrise.

Here's Doug Spadey with a bunch of lesser Canada geese. We had plenty of action in the morning, downing 17 honkers and we had more than enough opportunities for more. It seemed like the flights were on about a 30 minute schedule and it wasn't exactly warm, so we'd all invariably end up out of our layout blinds pacing around and shooting the b.s. when a flock would appear out of nowhere. I can't tell you how many large flocks of geese we fouled up…it was quite a few. The only one we couldn't blame was Nelly, who was sound asleep during these out-of-blind b.s. sessions.

Dad and I with our honkers. We had one helluva good time as usual!

Nick Anderson shows us the snow front moving towards us. Gotta love technology. I think it's time to pack up and got on outa here!

Nothing like a cold Blue Moon with ice chunks in it to polish off a totally awesome day in the goose field with these guys.

Tommy Crotchlow shows off his vintage 80's MC Hammer duck hunting waders.

The duck and goose hunting is just starting to heat up around the Potholes region. We experienced the first push of northern mallards and pintails on Tuesday and with the weather shaping up the way it is the next few weeks over there the hunting should be lights out. You can bet I'll be making another run over just as soon as my busy schedule allows for it!

While you're here check out this blog I wrote from a hunting trip to Mar Don last fall: