While for hunting season this year was equally crazy aswell with me almost drowning from an incident with my canoe and having to cancel a deer hunt to northwest Ontario and not able to bear hunt because of lack of money and time I still managed to make this year a very awesome year for hunting. I mostly whent for waterfowl for most of the fall but I have gotten lots of lifers off my bucket list this season. The hunting season would start unofficial so to say when I found lots of bullfrogs out where I was gar fishing in August, for a northerner its surprising how big they are so I harvested 5 of em and much to my surprise they were very good eating almost like shrimp mixed with chicken. Just a little bit before duck season, I attempted to crow hunt to get ready for duck season. They are very smart birds able to tell if something was up, had a small flock come to my spread before droped it into the swamp and got first. The way they react when one of their own is taken down is something to see. Duck season early in my area was marked by plently of bluewing teal, greenwing teal, wood ducks, mallards and wigeon early in the season. Come October me and friend managed to double team a pintail drake in color a first for both of us as usually they don't have their color until very late in the season and are apparently rare in Ontario to get in the fall. The next day I managed to get my first common merganser, while many say they taste gross still very cool, I still want to get a full male of that species. Close to Halloween we had a bit of a snow storm in my area leaving behind 4 inches of snow which made beautiful hunting scenery. After setting up my diver spread and hiding away, big flocks of oldsquaw/longtail ducks showed up in full force, able to hear them form far far away. While at first they weren't responding to decoys I had a flock come low enough to allow me to drop a few including a beautiful drake. Later on at the first week of November I when I had an incident falling out of my canoe, the duck in question I was going after was a whitewing scoter first one ever too. Fast forward to month of December with my first guided trip near the port rowan area in a layout boat for reds and canvasbacks. Hunting out of a layout baot was totally different, the scaryest part is just getting in afterwards I felt completely safe. While I have missed a shot at a ruddy duck I managed to drop a nice drake redhead from the layout, the conditions got rougher so out of safety we were moved to hunt on shore where surprisingly the action was a lot hotter then the layout having flock after after flock of redheads come into the spreads. That day I ended up with a limit of reds and hooded merganser hen too. Overally really enjoyed my year! Next years adventure pheasants & chukar, spring snow geese and canvasback hunt with friends in on my menu, looking forward to it. Happy Hunting
Lifers
Bullfrog
Crow
Common Merganser
Oldsquaw/Longtail Duck
Whitewinged Scoter
Redhead
2017 Year of lifers for hunting aswell :)
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