Recently, Michigan marsh lands saw a new generation of waterfowler during the annual youth waterfowl weekend. Michigan has a rich history when it comes to waterfowl hunting. Adding to that history is a group of waterfowlers in Southeast Michigan, the Gibraltar Duck Hunters Association.
For the past 9 years this group has been putting hunts together with their partner, Waterfowl USA, what may be be Michigan’s largest organized youth waterfowl hunt in the state. This year’s hunt saw 53 youths out for a morning in the marsh. Some of which won their trip through MYHEC ( Michigan Youth Hunter Education Challenge). The group donates five hunts as rewards at the annual state meet. The other youths signed up for the hunt via GDHA or WFUSA websites or at events through out the year.
Father and Son together in the outdoors
Each youth hunter and a chaperone are guided into the marsh by volunteer guides. The guides supply everything, even the guns and ammo at times. I have myself have been doing this hunt for several years now and it is always a highlight of my fall afield. In fact, I have had the pleasure of taking many MYHEC winners out. This year was no different, I had Nate and Chris Hilbrecht.
Nate and his father have never spent any time waterfowl hunting, which is very common for many of the youths and chaperones who go on these hunts. We spent the morning on one of my favorite spots to waterfowl hunt out on the shore of Lake Erie. We had a slower morning than what we had on last year’s hunt, but the birds we did see really wanted to sit right into the decoys. We even had a Great Snowy Egret that wanted to land in the decoys several times.
Nate Holding his very 1st BlueWing Teal One of my favorite ducks to eat.
We hunted until about 9:30am when Nate said he had enough for the day. At that time the action had really slowed for us. Nate was able to bag himself a few birds though; he got his very first Blue-wing Teal and a pair of Mallards. In fact, he was able to to get a hen and a drake Mallard that morning. Nate also took out his very first decoy. At 1st light we had a Wood Duck sneak in and he did a good job of scaring him and a good job on the decoy. It happens to the best of us at times.
After picking up the decoys and loading everything back into the truck it was time to meet up with everyone at the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area headquarters for the BBQ. At this year’s BBQ every youth hunter got a grab bag of waterfowl gear which included a dozen decoys, decoy bag and duck call.
After the kids finished eating their hotdogs and snacks they got to get a few calling lessons and duck id basics from Joe Robison of Zink Calls, who is also the local Wildlife Biologist for the Michigan DNR in the area. Other speakers on hand were Russell Brzezinski from Avery Decoys and HEVI-Shot who did a decoy placement demo, Mike Orzol from the NWTF talked about local NWTF projects, Greg Norwood from the USFWS talked about the Federal Duck Stamp program and it’s importance, and local Conservation Officer Mark Ennet talked about waterfowl law enforcement.
Plans are already underway for next year’s hunts. If you would like to learn more about these hunts check out the GDHA website or WFUSA websites for more info.
http://www.gdha.info
http://www.waterfowlusa.org
