Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show

Well I was finally able to make it to the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, PA after all of the heavy snow that hammered the East Coast. The show was amazing as always. I was able to meet and talk with Lee and Tiffany Lakosky from "The Crush" on the Outdoor Network. Great TV show, great people, and lots of fun if you are a deer hunter. The Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show has everything you could think of. Do you want to book a hunt or a fishing trip of a lifetime? This is the place to do it. Most guides offer "Show" discounts and have many pictures and taxidermy mounts at thier booths. Guides from all over the world come to this show. The waterfowl section had many big names such as Tim Grounds, Sean Mann, and Zinks. I was able to talk with Sean Mann for a while about how great the season went for the both of us. Sean reported that his duck numbers in Canada tripled and it was also his best season ever for geese. When I asked about how his hunting in MD was this year he told me that the goose hunting was good and the duck hunting was okay. If you want to get on huge numbers of geese and ducks in the same day then you need to book a trip with Sean Mann when he is up in Canada. I then visited with Tim Grounds. He is a great man to talk to when it comes to calling geese. He is very helpful and will take phone calls if you are having problems learning how to call. Jimmy Wren from Zinks is also a great person to chat with about hunting and calling. Now of course I could not leave there with out buying a few new calls. I added the Tim Grounds Acrylic SuperMag and the Zinks Acrylic PH-1 to my growing collection of calls. This show happens around the same time every year. If you have not been to it then I highly suggest going. Get to the show early and plan on spending all day there. The show ends on February 14th but there is always next year. Mark it on your calanders.

Ryan Smith
Duck Junkies Pro Staff
West Virginia

WV Season End

Well it is a sad, sad time. The WV waterfowl season is now over. On a good note, we had a great season. We finished this past weekend with 9 Geese and 6 Ducks bringing the total to 64 ducks and 32 geese. I have hunted in Eastern WV for 10 years now and this year held the best variety of ducks that we have ever seen. Our bag included GWT, Woodies, Black Ducks, Widgeon, and Mallards. It may not sound like a lot to some but prior to 2008 we only had Mallards and Mergansers with the occasional Black Duck. The Black Ducks were everywhere this year. This is a good sign for the years coming...hopefully. It seems like they are making somewhat of a comeback. This was also the first year that we have seen Teal in our area. The Blue Winged Teal moved out fast during early season as expected but the Green Winged Teal stayed all season and are still there. We have had a pair of Widgeon before but this year they came in decent numbers during the late season. The goose hunting was also good. Early season goose was excellent and we had a good finisher during the last two days to close out the WV waterfowl season. Now it is time to break out the fishing gear. Deep Dropping for Blueline Tilefish is right around the corner and Tuna will be soon after that.

Getting close to the end -WV

Well first I want to thank Duck Junkies for allowing me to become a Pro Staff member.
My last hunt was on 23 January in Harpers Ferry, WV. The ducks started using a new spot near us but that did not stop some of them from coming in. We managed to take our limit of 3 Black Ducks along with 3 Mallards and 2 Widgeon. The big numbers of ducks are still in the area but they are using new fields in the evening every few days. After Saturday's hunt we did some late evening scouting and found a field holding over 1,000 Ducks (Mallards and plenty of Black Ducks) along with over 1,000 geese. The pictures did not come out that great do to low camera light but the sound of thousands of waterfowl was undiscribable. Thats what it is all about folks. Well the goose season is out in DE and ducks will be done after this weekend. Duck ends in WV on the 30th and goose ends on the 31st so we are going to make the best of it. We are planning on hunting ducks on Saturday and geese in the field on Sunday (yes it is legal in the state of WV on private property w/land owner permission).