Moose drool

Wow, brings back memories. Round about late summer 2000 I did a circle tour road trip of the whole country with a college room mate. Drank quite a bit of Moose Drool when we were around Missoula and Glacier NP.
 
Actually bought some Moose Drool to being home with me. Love it.
 
I will share this one with you. We paddled about three quarters of a mile into a stiff wind to get in position to push down a shoreline stretch that we had watched about fifty mallards and two big groups of blue wings totaling over a hundred birds using for two days. There are a couple of small, semi-enclosed coves along this stretch of shoreline that hold a mix of mallards and woodies, along with some black crowned night herons that roost in one. We were about 200 yards from starting our sneak into the strong winds when an eagle flew over us from the east and proceeded to push one big group of teal and around thirty mallards off the water we were about to jump shoot. The teal settled back in further south along the shore but now out in open water. None of the mallards came back. Should have had some Moose Drool then. We did pick-up three mallards and a wood duck.
 
So I have never had an eagle hunting ducks with me that I recall.Ten years ago or so my son and I had a great horned owl swoop down and pick up a teal decoy just before shooting time.
We get Moose drool bottles here in western Kansas they started recently offering cans which are much better for camping and such.
 
Three years ago, I had an eagle roost in a dead tree about five hundred yards from me. As I was taking pictures of him, I realized he was staring straight at the boat prior jumping into flight and gliding right at the TDB. I forgot I had laid a wigeon on the blind grass on the rain roof to finish cooling and bleeding-out. He broke-off his approach at about fifteen yards when I stood up... Seven years ago I had winged a pintail that I watched fall and die about two hundred yards out. He was on a perfect track to blow right back into my spread to pick him up with minimal retrieval effort...until an immature eagle swooped in picked him up about seventy yards from the edge of my decoy spread. We have three pairs that work that shoreline where we hunt. We place our carcasses on a stretch of deserted beach for them to feed on along with the migrating turkey vultures rather than pack our dead birds in a dumpster to eventually end-up in a landfill. Last year I found an errant wigeon decoy that had blown away when the anchor line parted just below the knot. Beyond all the herring gull and heron peck marks and the mink damage was a distinct talong pattern in its back from being grabbed by an eagle working the shoreline.

Only have had one owl encounter. That one involved a great gray owl that decided I shouldn't be retrieving a wounded black duck he was eyeing that I had knocked down. Fended him off with my gun barrel when he came in with talons out and wings flapping. The real downside on that retrieve was that it was in knee deep muck that I did not want to send the dog into. Getting out of the boat and into the button bush stand was straight forward. I grabbed the bird and tossed it back to Arland to catch. I had to get him to run the canoe in as close as he could get to crawl onto the bow and drag my legs out to work my way down the gunnels and roll-in, bringing along a nasty gray-green marl coating which never did work out of that wader fabric.
 
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