Recent content by Doug Gradin

I missed the sticky, too. Hope I'm not too late..... Order placed.

"If we can get the airlock off and knock over the carboy without them seeing, we can have BEER!"

Ditto. Nice to see you getting her retrieves with that 20....

I really loved hunting over that old Can decoy. I wish we'd been able to shoot a Canvasback over it, but it did get the dust washed off, and certainly looked much happier back on the shelf in the hunting lodge when we put it back. We left it rigged with a cord and clip, so perhaps it's working...

Brandon, I am jealous my friend, just jealous..... I know I won't see anything like that here near Motown tomorrow morning, but I'm headed out solo, and I can only hope that it is memorable in it's own way.

Lee, The body's are solid and a little less than 2" thick. They were made from a piece of cedar board that I found as driftwood along Lake Superior. It took a long time to dry and the first few millimeters were really soft and got carved away, but the wood underneath was hard and really nice to...

Here are a few pictures of my Canvasbacks on the water here in Michigan last weekend during the youth hunt, along with a couple on my "bench." Since I don't really have a shop to work in, I just use a table in my living room. Someday maybe I'll have more space...

Kris, you could be right, and if so then it's a BWT. The eye was not red, but the bill was SO long we figured it couldn't be a Blue Wing; but then if it was a Cinny then it had to be a hen based on eye color. I'm certainly willing to believe it is just a hoss of a BWT!

Yes, I do. I'll try to figure out how to get them posted up tonight. The paint on these was barely dry when we hunted them - i.e. no float test - but I think they did pretty well!

Thanks for posting those, Brandon. I still haven't figured out how to post pictures.... I decided that the first working decoys I made should be Canvasbacks. My great-grandfather was a market hunter, and when I was a little boy, his son (my grandpa) would tell me stories of his dad bringing...

Congrats! That's a really nice looking bird. It's getting less and less unusual to get them here in Michigan. Old Squaw are pretty common on the open waters of the Great Lakes these days, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them on other large northern lakes. They say that the zebra and quagga...

I've hunted Drummond Island quite a bit, though not for several years. The Potagannising River and the chain of lakes on it (1-4) can be very good hunting. I'd recommend a small rig with a mud motor if you plan to go very far upstream, as the lakes are shallow and weed choked and the river...

This sure brings back memories for me. My cousins and I used to ride the Sandy River at Oxbow Park in inner tubes when I was a kid. And my Granddad's barn in Gresham looked much like the ones in your pictures - it's gone now- the farm is now a Sports Park amid subdivisions. I had the good...

Wis Boz, I've done a site search, because I'd really like to hear your story of the Armistice Day Storm, but I can't seem to locate it. Any chance you could tell it again for those of us who are fairly new to this community?

Here's one in a lake: Two guys, no life jackets....hope they can swim. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ASidFlPrIE