Something different. Diver Day on the Mississippi, Wisconsin Style.
A short 45-minute drive from where I live puts me at Lake Pepin, a naturally occurring lake along the Upper Mississippi River NWR, bordered by Wisconsin and Minnesota. This 22-mile long body of water provides an expansive area for a large portion of the flyway’s waterfowl to stage at during their migration.
To give you an idea of how big of a part this National Wildlife Refuge plays in a bird’s journey South, counts from a single day in the fall of 2005 have exceeded 600,000 birds. It’s estimated that roughly 50% of North America’s Canvasback population passes through and/or stage here. Daily Canvasback counts can push over 350,000. Redheads, Buffleheads, Ruddy Ducks, Bluebills and more frequent the area as well. As you can likely guess, the Upper Mississippi River NWR provides some of the best Canvasback and diver-duck hunting in the nation.
A few good friends and myself were hoping to catch part of the annual Canvasback action, and made a plan to set up a diver spread out near the main channel. It was December 1st, and inclement weather was in the forecast. Setting our alarms for an early morning wake-up, we had the boat hooked up and all of the gear ready to go. For one of us, technology had other plans. My friend’s phone died at some point during the night, which rendered his alarm useless and he didn’t wake up on time. Unfortunately for the rest of us, he was the one with the duck boat, which meant we were out of luck. We collectively agreed that we’d wait until we got a phone call, and make a game plan from there.
As is customary with your duck buddies, a good razzing was in order as we met him at the gas station prior to hitting the water; “Good morning, Sunshine!”. After topping off the boat with fuel, we headed to the boat landing. Tossing in our gear and loading up the dogs, the boat slid off its bunks, and was ready for the journey to our hunting spot a few miles downriver. With it being 9:00am at this point, we approached our first spot could see the flicker of spinning wing decoys, which meant it was time for the backup plan. On to spot #2 we went…then spot #3…..and finally spot #4. Finally finding a location that wasn’t already being hunted, we busted shore ice, got the boat blind set up, and threw out the dekes. With a long line of single-file diver decoys leading to a pile of every decoy we could find, we were ready to rock.
Almost immediately a flock was making a bee-line towards our setup. “Shoot ‘em!” we called out, followed by the splash of the dogs making their way out to retrieve their prizes. This repeated over the next few hours, and we collected our legally allowed limit of Canvasbacks. We added on with a few lonely Goldeneye that made their signature entrance into our trap, buzzing in just a few feet off the surface of the water. Anyone that has hunted Goldeneye knows exactly what I’m talking about.
The entire hunt provided less-than-ideal conditions when it comes to hunter comfort, but was perfect for birds to be moving through. A windy snowstorm had moved in and spent most of its time with us during the day, providing limited visibility and flocks of birds that seemingly appeared out of thin air. As the snowfall slowly became heavier and caused the remaining birds in the area to hunker down, we called it quits and made our way back to the landing. We joked that if we have any more mid-day hunts as good as this, we might never wake up early again.
When we arrived back at the boat launch, our truck and trailer was now the only one there, aside from an older gentleman with his dog who was also loading up his own vessel about to head home. We said hello, and he asked how we did. While sharing our success with him, he commented on the fact that he loved seeing a group of younger hunters out battling the harsh cold weather to earn their keep. “Old school duck hunting…what seemed like a lost art for a while,” he said.
With cold feet, frozen noses, and fingers we couldn’t feel, there was one thing we all agreed on: it was the most memorable hunt of the year, and one we won’t soon forget. Not because of the birds we shot, but because of the experience.
