The Outdoor Line Forum

Just returned from our 4th annual waterfowl hunt with the folks at Mar Don Resort on Potholes Reservoir. We had a great gang of hunters again this year and the hunting was great too.

We raffled off a bunch of goodies the night before the goose hunt and Uncle Frank was lucky enough to win this awesome gun cleaning kit from Otis Technologies. This kit folds up into a handy little pouch that can easily be stowed in any pack.

John Guinotte walked away with a half dozen pre-rigged Hard Core decoys

After dinner we headed back to our cabins for some shenanigans before hitting the rack early. Here's salmon derby legend Pete Nelson doing his best Uncle Phil impersonation

We broke into two groups of seven hunters, plus two guides per group, for the goose hunt on Wednesday. Jay Field's group had their limit of birds really early in the morning and were back to their cabins by 1:00 p.m. for nappy time. My group downed a few geese in the morning, but we had to stick and stay for the entire day to get our limits of geese. At around 3:30 in the afternoon we had around 400 geese cyclone into the dekes and we knocked down 26 geese in one volley to finish out our limits. Never seen anything quite like that before

This was John Guinotte's first time on the trip and he went home with a limit of honkers. Thanks John!

I got to enjoy some time with my dad on the trip again this year.


The next morning we were on the lake early with four groups of duck hunters. It was a chilly 14 degrees...just the way we like it!
Dad knocked down the first duck of the morning which happened to be a nice greenhead. The majority of the ducks we got in our blind were greenheads and we were lucky enough to get a few awesome canvasbacks too

Our guide, Shelby Ross, ped us up some of Mar Don's patented duck kabobs for lunch. Here's Dad and Uncle Frank chowing on a couple of killer kabobs. This is the good life!

I got my first canvasback on this trip. I've always wanted one of these

John Guinotte got a big banded mallard. This drake was tagged in Merritt, BC back in August.

Here's the gang from my blind with a bunch of quackers from yesterdays hunt.

There were a lot of geese around over there and the cold and stormy weather we've had this past week has started to drive some of the ducks down from the north. If this cold weather holds I'd say the Thanksgiving weekend hunt could be a good one for folks that venture across the hill for some waterfowl action.

We keep going back to Mar Don because they do such a great job for us each and every time. We've already got next years hunt blocked out with them and I'm sure I'll be back over there at least one more time to hunt with the Mesebergs this winter. Good, good times

good times robbo! gotta love the canvasbcks! was nelly able to hit anything? good to see a great hunting trip!

Such an awesome time with equally awesome people. The people are really what make this trip special. Did Nelly hit anything you axe? He made an epic shot on a goose off the end of the layout blinds. It's the shot that I usually miss three times in a row while everyone is watching. Nelly, however, planted that sucker bill down in the dirt with one shot

thats awesome! real good pics, and some fine looking birds. first duck i ever shot was a "can" in the san juaquin valley in california visiting my great uncle when i was about 8. love to see them!