Almost losing the tip of my pointer finger was a great way to start this week. The plan for this week was to get out of Western New York and head to the Adirondacks for some waterfowl hunting, trout, and landlocked salmon fishing. My family has a little cabin in the mountains of the Adirondacks which we had to winterize in case of a freeze. We were gonna make the best of this situation by hopefully adding a couple of ducks, geese, and fish to the freezer.
This trip started on a low note. My weekdays usually consist of getting up at 5:00 am every day to do homework for two hours. Be at work by 8:00 am either at the farm, estate, or subbing (I got three different jobs at school). Then the gym from 3:30-4:45. Then class from 5:00 pm to 7:30 pm. Luckily today was Friday and I only have class Monday-Thursday, that means I was able to skip the gym and get ready to leave for the weekend.
Over the summer I took the time to clean up this old rowboat in my backyard that we know is at least 42 years old. The plan for that boat was to make it a sweet little small water duck hunting boat. That being the case we needed to brush that baby up. Before I left for the four and a half-hour car ride I stopped by the marsh at the south end of the lake I live on to scoop up some cattails and some brush.
This was supposed to be a quick in and out hour job, that way I could be on the road by three o’clock. Thirty minutes into cutting brush I looked down and noticed that my hand was covered in blood and that my hand was leaving a blood trail from where I had walked. It didn’t hurt at all before I saw it then once I looked the pain set in. I felt more stupid than it actually hurt. When I gave it a good look I had a skin flap from the tip of my pointer finger down to the first joint that was pretty freaking deep. I sprinted to my car wrapped an old shirt around my hand then drove to my apartment and tapped it up and went back down to cutting brush.
Two hours later a quick hour job was done. I smashed armloads of brush into the back on my tiny little honda accord and hit the road. The trip would take the second turn for the worse when I stopped to get a gas station meatball parm sub. Which by the way cost twelve bucks. I got the sub walked straight to my car to eat it and boom, it was ice cold. Off to a great start.
After a quick four and a half-hour car ride I got to the cabin around ten o’clock at night. I got the water running, the heat on, and got all the brush out of my car and got her cleaned up. One thing that has boggled my mind since I was little was how dark it gets at night up in the Adirondacks. Living on Long Island and in Western New York, it does not nearly get as dark in those places as in the Adirondacks. The stars up there are just unbelievable, you can look up and every time you just look up in awe of how insane it is.
After a couple of minutes of relaxin, I cracked a beer and got started on the duck boat. I was able to get the frame all situated and got started on the blind panels. A quarter of the way done and just about finishing up the blind my dad and brother pulled in after their seven-hour car ride. We unloaded the truck went inside and had a few beers and caught up since I haven’t seen my dad in a few weeks.
My brother and I were up at five o’clock that next morning on a mission to find some birds to get after, for the afternoon hunt. We off-roaded down this road to a couple of honey holes back in the mountains. Mind you we are in my little honda accord. Thankfully we didn’t break anything or get stuck so it was a raging success. We reached the first spot and after getting the shit scared out of us by a beaver slapping its tail on the water, we didn’t see anything. We headed over to the Lake Champlain area. We headed south first and worked our way back north checking out about a dozen marshes off the west side of the lake. We saw a ton of marshes that if I were a duck or goose I for sure would be hanging around there. I guess the actual ducks and geese had other plans. The morning scout resulted in seeing too many cormorants, not enough ducks, and only one goose.
After a depressing scout, we headed to the mecca. Walmart. We had to pick up a couple of things to finish up the blind and we remembered to get a plug for the boat which was great. Go us, now at least we couldn’t sink. We took the rest of the morning to finish up doing some maintenance on the cabin and help prepare it for winter. We got to practice shooting our bows a little bit. My dad surprised us with a freaking awesome lunch. Some of his famous ribs and some mac and cheese which was amazing.
We packed up the boat and headed to Schroon Lake we didn’t even scout this lake, but we didn’t even see any ducks anywhere else so it couldn’t have hurt. We just wanted to try out the “new” duck boat. We got it all packed up with our decoys and the blind and headed for the marsh. Right away on our way in we saw two geese which the season was closed on them at this time and six beautiful mallards. They spooked up on our way in but we hoped they would come back in later in the day.
We got set up pretty quickly it took less than five minutes to set up the blind I made and we only were going to put out a couple of decoys since it was early season. Fifteen minutes later we were in the blind waiting. Right off the bat, we saw ducks flying north coming out of the river mouth and headed straight up the lake. It felt pretty weird hunting this spot because we weren’t so far away from the boat launch. We were well over legal range away but it was weird to watch these boats get taken out of the lake from the blind. I like hunting spots where you just feel alone and this spot didn’t feel like that at all.
It always seems to be the case that once you stop paying attention, something happens. My brother and I were standing up shooting the shit when all of a sudden two duck come bombing in. We dived into the blind to start working these two birds. These were probably the two most apprehensive ducks I’ve ever seen. They circled our decoys for about five minutes before they decided to land just outside of decoys. They set up by this lone Suzie that was sounding off one hundred yards away.
Still pumped about how amazing our little duck boat turned out and talking about all the little upgrades we could make to it I noticed something through the grass. This very small duck was swimming up to the decoys. I waited till it got close enough then, BANG! I felt kind of bad water swatting it, but technically it did come into the decoys. Also I did just drive four hours to go duck hunting. That being said the first duck of the 2019 duck season was in the boat. It was probably for the best because when I picked up the bird it looked sickly. It was the smallest black duck I had ever seen in my life and it was missing one leg. Which in all honesty probably fell off because of the band on that leg. Basically now I can claim I shot a banded black duck. The rest of the afternoon went off without any excitement. However, after having the first duck harvested out of our “new” boat be a one-legged black duck we decided to christen the boat the ugly duckling. We packed it up went home had a few beers, an amazing dinner, and got ready for the next days adventure.
We wanted to try and do a little fishing at this one pond about two miles back into the woods by my house. The same one we had scouted for ducks the previous day. My brother and I sort of have a feeling of vengeance on this pond. We have never caught a fish out of this pond between the both of us, and we have been fishing this place since we were little. However, we have heard stories from my grandpa, my uncle, and my dad about the crazy amount of giant rainbow trout you could pull from this pond. We dumped the ugly duckling in the pond and headed off to the other side of the pond. It was about a mile drive to the other side and the ugly duckling kicked ass the whole way there. We didn’t see the beaver on our way over, so we had the whole pond to ourselves. My brother was using a spinning set up and started off throwing a rooster tail, while I started on the fly rod throwing a pattern that was similar to the bugs that I was seeing. The day before we saw tons of trout rising but today we saw none.
This pond is one of my favorite spots to get away from everything. Especially today it was so surreal. You could not see a plane in the sky, hear any cars or boats, no other people, no wind. The only thing you could hear was the static in your ears, the tiny ripples hitting the boat, and maybe the loon that hangs around if your lucky. I love wild feeling places like this and wish that I could spend every day of my life doing something like that. Hours passed and no fish later and we were on our way back to the launch.
That afternoon we had to do some work around the house, get firewood, fix a chimney cap, and a couple of other small things. My brother, dad, and I got to shoot our bows for a little bit. A couple of weeks prior to this trip I harvested my first deer and hadn’t eaten any of it yet besides the breakfast sausage I made. I brought up some backstrap to share with my dad and brother. When it came to cooking the backstrap, all I did was season it with salt, pepper, garlic, and put it on the grill. The grill was on high heat for three minutes on each side. I took it off the grill, sliced it up, and we were eaten. It was an interesting experience eating the backstrap because I expected the deer to taste different than either chicken, pork, or stake. However, it tasted just like steak which was surprising. I thought that venison would have this own taste but it was just so similar. I now know from eating other cuts of the deer that it does have its own taste. However, that backstrap was so unbelievably good.
After lunch, we decided to head back to the pond with my dad now. He said he wanted to do a little fishing and I jumped at the opportunity to go fishing with my dad. I try and get my dad out there hunting and fishing all the time, but he’s a busy guy. Fishing and hunting with my dad is something that I have loved doing since I was little, is something I still love to do, and I sure as hell wish I got to do a lot more of it than I do now.
We headed out and started to make our way to the opposite side of the pond that we went to that morning. The pond was even flatter than it was that morning. The whole way there, the sun was out and the trees looked incredible. It was cool out but the sun on your face makes your whole body feel amazing. We tried to find some shallower water in hopes that some trout would be basking in the sun. We watched six or eight wood ducks walk around the banks of the shore and then in one big swop they all took off. We kept seeing some very tiny fish rise to the surface and an occasional bigger fish would rise.
On our way back in saw a loon. I let a loon call rip and it responded. We drove a little closer, I let another call rip, it responded. I was able to get this loon within ten feet of the boat and it never spooked. It was so close the red of its eyes was cleary visible. Another thing that always surprises me about loons is just how freaking big they are. The loons up in the Adirondacks are beautiful. We have loons down from where I am from on Long Island and I don’t know if its a different type of loon or what, but they are one big ugly bird at home. After about fifteen minutes of just talking back and forth with the loon, it dove underwater and disappeared beneath the surface. We decided to head in for some dinner and some beers.
The next morning, my brother and I were up at the butt crack of dawn. Today we were going to hunt Lake Champlain out of the ugly duckling. Mind you that Lake Champlain is a huge lake and the ugly duckling is a very small boat. We got down to the boat launch and we were the only ones there. We got the ugly duckling loaded up with all our crap. Waders, blind bags, decoys, guns, trolling motor, etc… This morning felt particularly eery, the water was calm as anything and the fog was so thick you couldn’t see anything past the edge of the boat. Staring at google maps we made our way to the wave point I had set for us. We got there with about forty-five minutes to shooting light the fog was hugging the water tight. Off in the distance, you could start to see the sunrise off to the east. I quickly put out a small spread and then my brother and I set up the blind. The new blind system I made was working out perfectly all it takes is eight connections and eight zip ties and your done. No need to brush anything because we already had four strands of brushed chicken wire.
As we sat down for shooting light the fog was still thick over the decoys and the sun was starting to rise on our right. Quickly taking a glance to the right two ducks threaded their way through this tree to land just outside of shooting range. My brother and I joke about walking over there to take a crack at them. The second my brother goes to sneak up on them, they spook, shocker. Lake Champlain is unbelievably different from anything that I have ever hunted before. It is a literal giant highway for waterfowl. You can see so far in every direction, every time you turn your head you just see these giant flocks of birds. While we stood in awe of the number of birds around, a group of woodies buzzed our decoys. Which then headed for the marsh we were in front of. From here on out those woodies would bounce back and forth between the marsh and just outside of where we were.
My brother and I have this tradition where whenever there is a lull in the day we play the song duck blind on full blast to lure the ducks and geese in. I bust out my phone start signing away and my brother gets his duck dance going on. Three-quarters of the way through the song my brother yells at me to turn it off. Two geese were screaming in from over the trees behind us. The second they crossed the last branch of the tree I called the shot. We’ve had geese all day circle our deeks and not commit so I decided to call the shot ASAP. I let my brother take the first shot and it was a wif, not that my shot was any better I was so excited I barely even shouldered my gun. The next shot my brothers gun jams and I absolutely crumple one of the geese.
It was freaking awesome to get both the first duck and goose of the season in the same weekend, in two places that I have never hunted before, in a section of the state I’ve never hunted before. If you liked this story please subscribe to my blog I’m going to be posting a lot more in the upcoming months, also please follow me on Instagram it would really help out the blog. I hope you enjoyed.
-Colin Hickey
Leaky Waders 