#whackernation

As many of you probably heard Trevor and Myself got the opportunity to hunt with the one of our Pro-Staffers, a few of his close buds, and the guys from Whacker Nation, Matt & Adam. I had Never been to Oregon to hunt before and I have to tell you WOW what a cool place! All week we had been jawing at Eric about the where what when and how of the hunt but I don’t think anything really prepared us for what we had. The hunts did test us (mostly Eric) on finding the “X” The weather switched and shifted several time throughout the trip and luckily kept working in our favor for the most part— Wind and rain can make for some miserable people but some pretty awesome hunting. The trip started off in the usual Murphy’s law fashion— we were about 30 minutes late getting on the road, had to stop multiple times for gas food and rest areas, Managed to hit EVERY bit of traffic in Seattle and to boot decided it would be fun to run over a a nail in the middle of  I-5— our predetermined arrival time of 7:30 pm had now turned into 10:30 pom First day we hunted was a Friday— The plan was to hunt a nice piece of sheet water that had flooded over the lower half of a field— the previous days fair amount of Pintail, wigeon and teal had been using it and the pictures had the evidence to back it up. We rolled in and pushed our dekes to the spot using a SWEET cart that Eric had built— as we got closer to the the spot we chose to set up the water was not there….. we kept walking and walking only to find a VERY small piece of the water still left—after a few “WTF’s” and some head scratching we were still able to set up. Right around shooting light the teal were THICK. they would buzz us group after group only giving us a few seconds to reload between shots. After the morning frenzy things started to slow down and as groups started working we found that we had some serious competition from a large body of water behind us. We still managed to scratch out a few teal limits along with a couple pinny’s and mallards to round it out.  All in all it was  a great first hunt to get the “nice to meet ya’s” out of the way and get a feel for how the group meshed… at about 10 am it was time to pack it up and get on the scout for tomorrow— I thought that I was a pretty dedicated scouter, I can get up early grab the binos and head out to a few of the spots I know to get a feel on the birds. Eric and his crew have it down to a science—I’ve never seen more coordination between parties to achieve the common goal. We divided up into groups to check ALL of his property and beyond to get onto birds. After 4 hours of truck time just looking for birds we were able to find the spot to be— After a celebratory night with all the boys 4:00 Am came early for just about everyone— we got to the spot and got all set up. At about 8:30 we had our first group of Cacklers come work us— they circled a few times and Eric along with some backup from his buddy Nick were able to talk em into the dekes—  8 came in and only 1 left— next group of 15 came in and luckily for us a majority of the leading birds were Tavs— with Oregon’s game laws we were allowed 4 geese but only 3 of which could be cacklers— the Tavs fell first and we cleaned up a few extra cacklers to finish off 12 of the 15—

As we counted to body total and marked the harvest cards we were excited but also disappointed to only have 5 birds left in the tally only 3 of which could be cacklers— at this point it had been raining very steadily for about 2 hours. We were getting soaked and the cameras were taking a beating from the wind/ rain we had one group land and work — all cacklers — another group cacklers— another group cacklers— we eventually elected to shoot our 3 cacklers and call it a day.  22 birds in hand 18 cacks and 4 tavs. Much to our surprise we had got done at about 10:30— and with only 3 real groups that worked with lots of birds in the area we thought we would be back the next day— We got out of the field as fast as possible to avoid scaring any potential birds for the next morning. With much of the day still able to be hunted we decided to chase after a few ducks on a small pond Eric had— With the weather we had this pond was a sheltered spot that the ducks would work. Upon arrival the wind and rain really kicked up and our already wet crew was getting soaked through— we were able to drop 10 ducks that evening mostly wigeon with a bonus greenie—  It was a great way to wind down the evening and get ready for day 3— That evening as we sat in the local bar eating and recharging the batteries we got a call that pumped us all up Eric’s friend got a lead on a field for us that had 5k birds in it— We elected to try the other field just to round out the hunting trip— we could only hunt until 12 as we had to hit the road and the pressure was on to get a good hunt with lots of filming. We weren’t disappointed. The first big groups of birds lit just long of our decoys and we watched as group after group poured into the spread— all of which lit longer and longer away form us— we let them feed out and eventually a shot form a group of hunters just down the way spooked the birds out of our spread. We popped up quick to adjust and bring the dekes closer for a better shot at birds— the next 4 birds worked and all 4 fell. again another large group worked and we picked out 7 of them. Then the big group showed we all watched as they worked right in to the dekes and at the last second before landing gear down they picked up. We shot into them and dropped a few but could not figure out why they flared— the next few birds worked into the dekes beautifully and we were able to finish out the day and the hunt with great success!—  It was a great trip with even cooler company. Given the opportunity I would go back every chance I got. My only thing would be to remember more waterproof gear. The footage we got was great and should make its way out to be viewed soon. Either way we couldn’t be happier with our staff members and our great affiliate, Whacker Nation. Eric, Big thanks to you and your family for opening up your home to Trev and myself. Another big thanks to Nick Scott for his help throughout the trip and the days leading up to it— As our partners from Cali would say….. Until next time, Whack Em’