Philip Finck


[Roll Call ]

Posted by Philip Finck on October 12, 2005 at 5:59 p.m.:

A bit long winded.

20 years with the Nova Scotia Department of natural resources, hunting for 35 years; from reefs and cliffs (crawl down the cliff and let them come to you, no decoys), also with decoys and from the gunning tub around offshore shoals. This is all harsh weather/conditions hunting, ledges and islands directly exposed to the North atlantic ..next stop is Spain or Brazil. Best hunting mid-late November through to end of season in early January ...eiders, cockawee, white wing coots. Black ducks in salt water puddles but on the outer islands they are like ghosts ...extremely hard to decoy and even worse to sneak up on.

Hunt from Ironbound Island (1 mile by 1/2 mile), a former fishing community of 8 homes, now only summer homes. Most of fishing gear, large fish sheds, slip ways dating from circa 1815 to 1990's is still there .... walk in and flip on the power. Hunt, fish and old gardens made of beach sand and kelp. 30 foot cape cod, plus various aluminum boats for messing around.

Lots of deer on the offshore islands, numerous colonies of grey seals (vermin), schools of porpoise, whales, occassional leather back turtles ...big school of 1000lb tuna last weekend. Mackerel, good if eaten within 6 hours ...otherwise only good for lobster bait...cod and haddock are basically extinct. We make our own decoys, functional but not pieces of art, we have the whole outer bays to ourselves; very few hunters ..cant hunt on mainland due to discharge regulations and houses around the bay ...few people have heavy gear that will alow them to go into the open ocean around the mout of the bay.