Brant

[greybeard]

I was down walking at the surf today just to chill, and at one point looked out into the bay on the other side.  The brant were coming in, as they do during low tide, and  there were hundreds of them.

I know that the season isn't open yet,and it is not unusual to see that many, but figured I'd pass it on for the new waterfowlers,. Some guys may  want to scout for them in the south shore bays, while duck hunting  so that they know where the Brant should be during the open season....Where I hunted for them, they had the same hangouts throughout most of the season, so scouting saved time, and increased the odds.

 

I haven't hunted for them in a few years because I can't stand eating them, but they are fun to hunt.

[Early]

Dang.....That was my next question:  Are Brant good to eat??   Any good recipes??

[greybeard]

Early..A bay constable told me to make it like carp..cook the meat on a board, throw the meat away and eat the board..funny at the time.

 

The last one that I cooked smelled like swamp mud, and oozed some horrible looking blood . I had taken it from the freezer and thought that it was a mallard until it thawed. I had been hoping to serve the brant  to someone who I didn't like, but now I had to eat it.

I tried that one plain on the  bbq.. horrible. That was the last one I ever shot

 

I am the worst cook, so forget my recipes, my wife is the cook..

 

The limit was either 2, or 3 a day and when I found them, I could usually limit out..Usually I'd save up a bunch and then give them to my wife to cook.  My wife  made them a  kind of Chinese style with  an orange sauce, garlic, (some kind of oil, I think), ginger, soy sauce, peppers, , I think  snow peas, and  onions. There was pineapple in it too..

It was a packaged mix, but I don't have a clue as to how she did it.....That was good, but she wouldn't eat it, so I'd have it for lunch and it was too much of a bother. I served a bunch of them like that at a game dinner and the guys ate it and didn't complain.

 

They make good crab bait, and a friend took some to his place and baited for coyotes.. I don't know if it worked.

 

I had some good spots, but needed my kayak to get to them and in winter the weather makes that kind of hunting pretty restrictive.

 

 

[virgil]

Was anybody else out there for the opener for brant yesterday? We went out of Point Lookout and the place was more crowded than I've ever seen it. We had a great day. Got our limit on brant as well as two blacks and two mallards.

[letinmfly]

Dang.....That was my next question:  Are Brant good to eat??   Any good recipes??

 

Nasty as all heck!!

[greybeard]

Virgil... Congrats... I like that area for Brant, but the current is too much for me in the kayak. I used to watch the guys shoot brant while I herring fished from the point lookout pier.

 

I can't get my head into going for them.

 

 

 

 

[virgil]

greybeard, you're right.  the currents can be really strong.  over the last couple of years, the brant have become a little more challenging.  but, we've gotten a lot more shots at puddle ducks than we ever did five years ago.  i think the brant are getting 'educated'.  they often fly in massive numbers and a lot of the hunters are taking 'sky busting' shots at huge flocks of birds.  we set up on the south side of Reynolds Channel and watched a couple of boats across the channel taking shot after shot at birds that were way out of range.  no exageration- we saw one particular boat with six guys on it.  they must have shot at least 150 times before 11am.  only once did we see them knock down any birds.  this was a group that was out with an outfitter that had two or three other boats in the same area.

[greybeard]

Yeah, the brant do get educated...I used to watch them  take off as they saw the duck boats running thru the bay. By the mid season they'd take off when the boats weren't even close. I was convinced that they knew what a duck boat was.

I did my best when I hunted them  from my kayak, which is blue, and I wore a black jacket and black cap(we used to call it a long shoreman's cap), and face mask.. MANY times I could slowly paddle up to them, in very shallow water , position the kayak, load, bang on the 'yak, flush and shoot, like jumping pheasants. They usually weren't too afraid of me. I did this in the flats, where if you misjudged the tide you could be stuck in mud. No other boats in there , but me at the tide I'd hunt it, but I had to haul ass outta there at times, or I'd get stuck.

For most waterfowling, I wouldn't shoot from the kayak while I was on the water, but straight shots in under a foot of water I would, unless other conditions made it unsafe.

 

Funny thing that I noticed, on the south side of the bay, they tended to be more spooked by the kayak..Both sides got hunted and I thought that there was more boat traffic on the north side,. I had a theory, but it's just a theory

[mike rossi]

greybeard, you're right.  the currents can be really strong.  over the last couple of years, the brant have become a little more challenging.  but, we've gotten a lot more shots at puddle ducks than we ever did five years ago.  i think the brant are getting 'educated'.  they often fly in massive numbers and a lot of the hunters are taking 'sky busting' shots at huge flocks of birds.  we set up on the south side of Reynolds Channel and watched a couple of boats across the channel taking shot after shot at birds that were way out of range.  no exageration- we saw one particular boat with six guys on it.  they must have shot at least 150 times before 11am.  only once did we see them knock down any birds.  this was a group that was out with an outfitter that had two or three other boats in the same area.

 

Virgil,

 

I don't think your point was well received... Large hunting parties with each hunter using a 3 shot semi autoloader don't get weaned off of sky blasting as quick as one or two hunters because with all that steel in the air occasionally a bird falls. All the You Tube Videos and commercially produced videos more often than not portray waterfowl hunting that way. I hesitated to say that because it might actually encourage more people to hunt with semi autos, in large groups, and sky blast, rather than learn how to waterfowl...

 

Few birds are scratched down, fewer are recovered , many more absorb pellets and fly on, and even more -  get educated. Since waterfowl sometimes live for 20 or 30 years in the wild, a few educated birds can keep the younger and/or uneducated away from hunters for many years....

 

It is remarkable that you say one of these groups was with a guide. If you are going to guide hunters you have to pass up some money and be selective and only book clients who will follow your directives... However, most hunters, especially those with the money to pay a guide, know it all, are high status in society and therefore will not take directives because they are not accustomed to being told what to do... . Actually it may not have been the hunters fault in the scenario you describe - if the guide wasn't skilled enough to get the birds in gun range or to know when to call the shot, they paid him for a boat ride out in public navigable waters anybody can legally hunt... However, even if the outfitter/guide was at fault in that respect, the hunters still bear the responsibility of knowing their effective shooting range.

 

Edited January 10, 2014 by mike rossi

[virgil]

Mike,

That group that we were watching was with an outfitter that had two other boats in the channel filled with clients. No exaggeration, we heard at least 150 shots from that one boat and saw only three birds fall. I have no idea if the hunters were getting bad direction from their guide or if they were ignoring good instruction. But, we have noticed that the birds there have gotten much 'smarter' over the past few seasons. A few years ago, we used to have birds land in our set while we were setting and pulling our decoys. Now, we have to work for them. On the other hand, we're seeing more blacks and mallards lately. I just wondered if the sky busting that we were watching had anything to do with the birds getting smarter lately.

[mike rossi]

Virgil,

 

Off course it does. So does shooting at large groups of birds. Expect it to get worse with the Duck Dynasty effect...