A Different Level of Uncomfortable

A different level of uncomfortable

I wish you all could see me right now. My wife just looked at me and said “what’s that smirk all about?” When I think about guiding out west I get this little smirk on my face because I honestly loved it. I loved scouting, I loved having my dog with me and I loved the hunt. However I don’t love everyone, and that is a big deal when guiding. Maybe that will be another story down the road.  

So with that being said, you can brush me off right now. I’m not a seasoned guide, I literally guided 2 half seasons, but in that time I did learn some things. Yes of course I learnt how to hunt, and how to set up a hunt, but the biggest skill I learnt was dealing with people that could hunt anywhere in the world, but they decided to come hunt with me. 

I would like to think that after nearly 20 years in the Army, nerves wouldn’t be an issue. I’ve been in some shithole places, doing some crazy things in those 20 years, but 4:00 am in October with 5 dudes from Washington State ranks up there as one of the most stressful things I have ever done. 

These were 5 seasoned hunters, who spent a lot of time hunting all over North America. The first comment was “are there ducks?” when I returned from the scout. Humbly I stated “nope, we have a Speck hunt”.  I could tell that these guys were amazingly good people, but shooting Greenheads was the goal.  The Washington Crew (WC) were hard workers, determined that if this hunt fails it wouldn’t be because of them.

As we were waiting for legal time to start, the ducks started buzzing the spread. The WC were giddy. They are challenging me to make sure my watch was correct and on the time, joking about “it’s legal time somewhere” . They were excited… Me? I was freaking out. I hadn’t seen any ducks over 2 days of scouting, all of a sudden here they are. Are they gonna bugger off at first light? Are the Specks gone? These guys are gonna be pissed if they hunt isn’t lights out. Oh did I mention that they are returning guests, and regularly chats with the owners. 

While we were waiting for legal time, I asked the crew where / when they wanted the shot called, and they replied “we can shoot, call it when you want”. You don’t know how much stress was relieved with that statement. As the first flock of Mallards started working the spread, I could see the boys slowly putting their hands on the their shotguns. With the simple, “ Let em work boys”, I could see that they weren’t about to screw this up. As those birds did a pass, they lined up perfectly, the anticipation was was real, and with the “shoot those birds boys” I watch as 5 killers dropped 7 birds. The hunt was on. 

Have you ever heard 40-50 year old men laugh and giggle like school girls? Want to… Tell them there are no ducks, and then have them limit out in less than 90 minutes. Now it was time to start stacking those geese.  

The feed was about 1km away from a huge staging area for Specklebelly Geese, and the sky was full.

Incoming Tangent: But I realized the ratio of 1000:1 was real. Yup… that was the ratio we applied. 1000 Specks for every 1 you drop. If I didn’t have 50,000 specks in a field, it wasn’t hunted. I think we finished with just 10 specks and a couple snow geese, actually if you want to go through my social media, you find a video of these guys shooting into some snow, and the group's leader almost getting taken out by a falling snow goose. 

That hunt ended with a limit of ducks, 10 specks and a couple snow geese. The WC were buzzing with excitement. Laughter, high fives, hugs, and the anticipation of the next hunt was real. 

I’ve done some crazy shit in my life, but guiding 5 experienced hunters on a hunt in Saskatchewan will be one of my most favourite.