Cape Cod Seaduck Hunting: Eiders

Contacted Capt. Rueben Perez, checked our calendars and made travel arrangements for January 2007, never dreaming it\\\'d be an unseasonably warm 80 degrees in Mississippi while we were hunting Cape Cod area for eiders.

The rain and unseasonable warm Mass weather wasn\\\'t ideal either, but all things considered it was probably better than blustery single-digit temps, gail force nor-easterly winds and ice-encased everything more common to the area in mid-January.

We quickly located Woods Restaurant, just up the road from Plymouth Rock, a quiet family restaurant where the locals go to eat seafood in a tourist town. My kind of restaurant, too. Lobsters, $11. Decided I\\\'m not a real big fan of steamed clams; didn\\\'t even try the scrod, though later learned it was fish.

Winds were about 15-20 mph out of the SSW when we left the dock teh next morning. The salt water spray and all was fine. It was when I lost sight of the lights on shore while the boat was on the bottom side of a 5 ft swell that I realized we weren\\\'t in Kansas anymore! Capt Perez knew his way across the dark water, and before too long we were in a relatively quiet protected area, clipping decoys on long lines that had first been anchored. By shooting time we were situated off the the side of the spread, having clipped the boat\\\'s bow to the upwind decoy line; rocking along in the waves and watching trading seaducks immediately.

First thing you notice about seaducks is this: you\\\'re looking for them right above the water, not up in the sky. All but a few of the thousands of birds we saw the entire weekend were just 5 or so feet off of the water. The second thing you realize is that they\\\'re easy enough to hit but, built like sherman tanks, difficult to kill - keep shooting until they\\\'re dead.

Determined to shoot only quality birds, Gator and I took turns on bright white adult drakes and pairs of ducks, passing entirely on decoying flocks. The first morning we each selected a nice, brick-red hen eider, maybe one of the most beautiful of hen ducks, from a pair. The second morning we stuck with drakes only.

Always said I\\\'d rather be lucky than good. First pair that came in sailed into the decoys and a single shot dropped them both. Perez\\\'s chocolate lab, Bo, retrieved the hen first and was then sent for the drake. As he was returning with the drake and about 5 feet from the boat gator jumped up pointed at the bird and excitedly yelled those magical words - it is banded!

More eider hunting...