Two-Day Stubble

There is no shortcut from Des Moines, Iowa, to North Battleford, Saskatchewan. After three bumpy plane rides and two long layovers, I stumbled through the baggage claim in Saskatoon looking for a short, gray-bearded man in a camouflage hat. That, at least, had been Bill Cooksey’s self-description. Cooksey, who handles marketing for Avery Outdoors, had invited me to spend two days hunting waterfowl in stubblefields with Shawn Nyholt, an Avery pro-staffer from North Battleford.
Cooksey was easy enough to spot, and after brief cordial introductions we climbed into a massive pickup truck for the one-hour drive to North Battleford. We would room together in a small, one-story motel on the main highway through town, where Nyholt would pick us up the next day.
In the wee hours of the following morning I met my hunting companions, M.D. and Julie Johnson, a husband-and-wife outdoor writing and photography team who also live in Iowa. Julie would spend almost the entire hunt with a camera, whereas M.D. would handle the more dangerous implements. Imagine a 40-something Shaggy from “Scooby Doo” with a funny, earnest and highly gregarious personality; that’s M.D. His youthful idioms (“dude,” “awesome,” “cool” and so on) warmed the damp, near-freezing air outside the motel as we waited for Nyholt, who arrived precisely on time and fully prepared.

The morning hunt began with a quick stop at Tim Horton’s, a Canadian fast-food establishment, for fresh coffee and a big box of Timbits—basically cake donut holes “available in over 35 varieties.” You know you’re with a fun group when something as simple as Timbits becomes a recurring source of laughter in addition to low-level sustenance. Hours later M.D. would observe—with a full mouth—how well the flavor of Timbits holds up to the donuts being crushed in an Avery blind along with thistle and barley stubble.
Thus nourished, we drove a short distance out of town and set several dozen Greenhead Gear decoys in a field of barley stubble. Our spread was a mix of Canadas ranging in size from diminutive “lesser Canada” full-bodies to magnum shells. Most were set on motion stakes.
Nyholt clearly had a plan in mind and gave directions on setting the spread. We placed several dozen decoys in small clusters of five to eight, imitating the typical early season segregation of family broods. The layout comprised a plump, ragged, flattened “V,” with our blinds just downwind from its apex. One small cluster was placed downwind of our blinds, to mimic a recently landed group walking into the larger formation. An upright “caller” decoy—an amazingly realistic piece, complete with open mouth and pink tongue—was set in the midst of the blinds. In less than 30 minutes all of the decoys were in place and all five blinds brushed in with handfuls of stubble.
The field was situated near the top of a broad, gently sloping ridge overlooking several miles of open terrain. This part of Saskatchewan is drained by the Saskatchewan River and consists of rolling farm country pocked with small tree-shrouded wetlands. Fields are large and often separated by brushy fencelines. The main crops are barley, canola and peas. From a goose blind at the top of a hill, the October landscape looks like a giant quilt thrown upon the floor with all its folds and creases. The fabric comes in shades of gold, tan and gray with dark-brown borders and randomly placed dots of blue.
Perhaps two miles northeast of our blinds—and well within sight—a lake held large numbers of Canada, white-fronted (aka “specklebelly”), snow and blue geese. At sunrise their voices broke the silence and their long wavering skeins were barely visible against the muted colors of the landscape. It was time to cover up inside our Avery Power Hunter blinds.
Clearly Nyholt had put us where the birds wanted to be. The first to decoy was a small flock of specklebellies, but something caused them to veer to our left. I was in the far left blind and came up shooting when Nyholt yelled, “Get one, Chad!” The old Beretta A390 found its mark, and a young spec tumbled into the stubble 46 paces away.
While I retrieved the bird, Nyholt hastily examined the decoy spread and found a decoy off of its stake. He corrected the problem, and subsequent flocks proved far more cooperative. For the next two hours we enjoyed steady action on geese that wanted into the spread.
In order to simplify things at Customs, I had not brought ammunition. Cooksey had stopped at a sporting-goods store in North Battleford before my arrival and stocked up on shells. The selection had been somewhat limited, so I wound up having to choose between genuine shoulder-busters and very light loads. I went with the lighter option: Federal Speed-Shok 23/4" loads with a mere one ounce of steel No. 2s at a modest 1,375 fps. Using the Improved Cylinder tube in the old Beretta, I cleanly took my limit of eight dark geese and a few snows, missing only twice and losing no cripples. I even managed to double on a pair of 10-pound honkers, killing both in the air at 30 yards. Except for that first spec, all shots were between 15 and 35 yards. This experience confirmed my longstanding belief that most goose hunters are overloaded, especially when hunting with decoys.
The Canadian limit on geese is generous, allowing eight dark geese (five of which may be specklebellies) and 20 light geese per day. When we finally ran out of Timbits around 10 am, our four guns had taken 23 geese. Among the fallen were lesser, interior and giant Canadas; one specklebelly and a few snows and blues. We were short a limit of dark geese—although not from a lack of opportunities.
After cleaning the geese, we indulged in a large and delicious café lunch in North Battleford. Then we restocked on ammo and fuel, took a brief siesta and headed for a low-lying pea-stubble field near a wooded marsh. Nyholt promised us a mallard hunt to remember, and he delivered. I came away thinking that pea stubble is like cocaine for ducks.
The spread that afternoon was mostly mallards, with about four dozen Greenhead Gear full-bodies on motion stakes. We sprinkled a few Canada decoys among them, put up a flapping motion-mallard, and grassed up the blinds. The shape of the spread could be described as roughly a large blob. According to Nyholt, ducks are not nearly as bashful about landing amongst each other, so it isn’t critical to leave a landing space.
Our blinds were set amidst the decoys. Again we used the Power Hunter blinds in the Field Khaki (i.e., non-camouflage) model, which blends well with a wide variety of landscapes. Probably because of his connections at Avery, Nyholt has better equipment than I’ve seen with most other Canadian outfitters.
All my life I’ve hunted ducks over water. In fact, until the Saskatchewan hunt I had taken ducks only in fields as incidental bonuses on goose hunts; I never had targeted ducks specifically in stubble. Veteran waterfowlers may take it as a given, but this hunt completely changed my perception of duck hunting on dry ground. Soon I was near my limit of eight ducks, all mallards.
As sunset neared, a flock of perhaps 200 birds came winging toward the decoys. “Let’s not shoot at this big group,” Nyholt said. “I don’t want to spook them off the area.”
They landed all around us, and we peeked out from our blinds to watch them gobble peas no more than an arm’s length away. Several times they lifted off and returned, careening around the spread as if flying for no better reason than the rush of flight itself.
We were short of our limit by several birds, but there are moments in a hunter’s life when not shooting seems like the right thing to do, and we were all happy to share one of those. The moment lasted for nearly an hour, until everything turned blue and coyote voices came drifting across the stubble. By then much of the flock had fed and departed. The remainder flushed as we exited the blinds, and we could hear the ducks circling as we picked up our gear. I suspect they returned after we left.
We finished the day with a good steak and glass of wine at a restaurant in North Battleford, and then stayed up later than we should have, swapping stories and swilling Molson. When in Canada, eh?
Our second and final morning brought fog and freezing rain on a brisk wind. With bleary eyes and stinging fingers, we set a hundred decoys in the center of a pea field so large that a thousand dekes would have looked paltry. The spread combined Canada, snow, blue and mallard full-bodies and shells. As we settled into our blinds to wait for daylight, I could feel the short night and Timbits catching up with me.
Ten minutes before shooting time, mallards and pintails began pouring into the field. One small flock landed almost directly on M.D.’s blind, and he came within inches of catching a drake with his bare hands. We’re not sure what he would have done with it.
More birds appeared as shooting time arrived, and M.D. announced in a loud, formal-sounding voice, “Now I will call to them with my duck call!” At that point he raised the call to his lips and launched into a stunningly accurate rendition of the sax line from the 1958 surfer hit, Tequila. I laughed out loud, but the ducks didn’t care. Once again Nyholt had put us where the birds wanted to be.
In the next two hours the five of us killed 30 mallards and 10 pintails. I also took a lovely mature blue goose, which Nyholt called an “eagle head.”
That afternoon we decided to cook ducks instead of hunt geese. We scrounged through the motel kitchen and came up with a shaker of lemon-pepper and a half-empty jar of red raspberry jam. We tossed some duck breasts into a zip-lock bag with lemon-pepper and a bottle of Molson. In another bag we coated more breasts with the raspberry jam. This gave us two options for meat and a fruit, if you count the jam. We grilled everything on Nyholt’s old Weber in the yellow light outside of the motel room.
I have been a guest at some of the most exquisite hunting lodges in North America, but with the right people, I’m more than happy to drink beer and eat crudely prepared meat in a cheap motel. You need to keep that perspective, I think, when hunting Canadian waterfowl. Because Canadians generally prefer big-game hunting, Canada never has developed the rich tradition of waterfowl clubs and fine lodges that we enjoy in the US. Before booking a hunt, ask a prospective outfitter about his equipment, the accommodations, his scouting practices and his hunting methods. Don’t expect royal treatment, but listen closely to see if the outfit seems well organized and professional.
Some Canadian waterfowl outfitters are scarcely competent. More than once I’ve traveled north only to be disappointed by guides who have been far-less-competent waterfowlers than I—and I am by no means an expert. Some other hunters in our motel apparently had hooked up with such an outfit. They had nowhere near the action enjoyed by our party.
Nyholt is a welcome exception to all of this. He is a savvy, intelligent young man, honest and farm-raised, with a high degree of professionalism. And he almost certainly could kill ducks and geese anywhere. That’s important, because even in Saskatchewan the birds are not push-overs. It’s big country, and good scouting is required to keep hunters on birds.
After another late night of fellowship, we rose early to travel home red-eyed and unshaven. Our itineraries called for us to part in Chicago, but severe thunderstorms grounded hundreds of planes and threatened to trap us in the city for at least another day. Because M.D.’s and Julie’s home lies only 10 miles off the road between Chicago and Des Moines, the three of us jammed ourselves and our gear into a tiny, rented Ford Focus and out-ran the storms. I dropped off M.D. and Julie and then stumbled into my home well after midnight, totally spent but willing to do it all again as soon as possible.

Author’s Note: For more information on hunting in Saskatchewan, contact Avery Outdoors, 800-333-5119; www.avery outdoors.com or Shawn Nyholt, Pro-Staff Outdoors, Ltd., 306-249-5695; www.saskgoosehunting.com.

Chad Mason is a frequent contributor to Shooting Sportsman and other sporting magazines. His collection of bird hunting essays, Voices on the Wind, with a foreword by Michael McIntosh, received the rare Must-Read rating from Today’s Book and is available at www.shootingsportsman.com. Mason lives in Des Moines, Iowa, with his wife, three daughters and two bird dogs.