2005/2006 Northeastern California Opener
By Corbin Wadlow, Drake Field Expert

For 8 long months I anticipated the opening day of the Western waterfowl season and it had finally arrived. In August Tommy Haase, Dan King and myself had sent in our application for the infamous California/Oregon waterfowl Valhalla known as the Klamath Basin. In this basin sits some of the best waterfowl staging areas in North America. This area is probably the biggest bottle neck of the Pacific Flyway.

Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Refuges hold superior numbers of Western waterfowl starting in September and come October this sleepy little basin is a duck and goose hunter's paradise. As luck would have it the "duck gods" were shining down upon us and our crew was among the lucky parties to draw a pass allowing us entry into the Tule Lake Marsh for the opening weekend.

Phone calls were made and preparations were put into full swing as the reservation card did not show until the second week of September. Opening day was only 3 weeks away and we all know as waterfowlers that means everything else is put on the back burner as we prepare ourselves and our gear for the big day. I sometimes have to laugh at the way we plan for months to make sure all attention has been paid to detail and that everything is ready for the season but once the season starts I can get a call at 10:00 p.m. hear there are birds hitting an area 3 hours from the house and be packed and on the road in a matter of a couple of hours dog in the crate and boat in tow.

Oct. 7Th finally arrived. Tommy, Dan, Storm, Drake and I were loaded up and headed out on our 6 hour drive north to the Klamath Basin. The drive up was the normal pre opening day drive, filled with stories of past openers, old hunting buddies, grandpa's, bad jokes and plans for the morning. We pulled into Klamath Falls Oregon at about 12:30 Friday afternoon and checked into our motel. We spoke to several other eager hunters and even ran into some familiar faces from past trips as we unloaded our equipment and readied the boat.

Next it was time for lunch so we dropped in to the local Black Bear Diner where we had a great meal. Tommy and Dan had never hunted the Tule Lake Marsh so I was excited about getting them out on their first Marsh hunt. Those of you who have never been on the Tule sump believe me when I say there is not another waterfowl haunt with any nastier, deeper wet cement like mud in the country. It is only accessible by boat and not many venture out of the boat. The sump on average has about 2 feet of water and 3 feet of mud. I was also holding out until the last minute to tell the guys we would be heading down to the refuge entrance at midnight to sit in line on a dike road and wait for the 5:00 hr. when we could make the mile or so drive down to one of 3 crude launch spots. We spent the next couple of hours loading our gear into the boat and making last minute equipment checks like blowing calls, a couple drops of oil on the Benellis and loading our Drake Waterfowl XL Floating Blind Bags with shells and duck hunter snacks.

At around 7pm I made the announcement about our fate for the night ahead of us and was met with "I can't believe it, are you serious". "That's right boys no rest for the wicked tonight!" Well off to the refuge we headed at about 11:00pm. We wanted to be up close to the front of the line. It was a long chilly night in the truck with the temp somewhere in the low to mid 30's. Good thing all of us had purchased plenty of Drake apparel. Everyone had donned there high back pants and quarter zip pullovers with heat escape vents. We tried to sleep but it just wasn't in the cards.

Instead we listened to the radio and swapped more old stories until finally it was time. The refuge employee showed up and moved the barricades and the great Tule Marsh race was on again. We bounced single file in line with the other trucks as we made our way down to the launch area. Oh the fun of launching at the marsh on opening day with less than seasoned boat owners and first time Tule hunters. We were in the water and had the mud motor fired up. It was finally here, we were on the marsh! I yelled out over the motor to shine the light on the tule's to the right and keep a sharp eye out for a break in the tule line. That was the entrance to the area I wanted to take us. Well we missed it the first time, not hard to do when the tule's and cattails are 5 to 7 feet tall and a solid wall of them in every direction. We got turned around and nailed it the second time.

Right, left, hard left came the shouts from the front of the boat as I steered the boat through a channel barely wide enough to fit the 17' 54" Pro Drive through in the morning blackness. After about 300 yards of this there it was the opening to the "big pond" We headed back to a cove area and started to set our dekes for the opening day shoot. Setting decoys in the Tule Marsh out of a mud boat is an adventure in itself but we made quick work of it and were done in no time.

Next we positioned the boat, set the dog ramp in place and readied ourselves for shoot time. There were birds everywhere. It was so good to be in the field again. I looked up to the sky and thanked the man who introduced me to his passion that has become my obsession some 26 years ago. My grandfather had passed on Oct. 8th 5 years prior and there has not been a day I take to the marsh, river or field that I don't look up in the morning and take a minute to thank him. This day had a little more of a bitter sweet than past openers as it was the 5th anniversary of his passing to the day. Mallards, gadwall, widgeon and teal were putting on quite a show as they would announce there arrival and sit down right into the decoys. My 7 year old lab Storm was beside himself as he watched the winged spectacle taking place before his eyes a mere 15 yards from his morning perch. We called and high fiving for the next 20 minutes. The time passed by quickly.

Shoot time! We started in on a group of 5 mallards that came pitching in eagerly and after a few quick shots 4 mallards lay on the waters of the great Tule Lake Marsh. Storm was off like a shot and the first bird back was a big beautiful green head. The 2005/2006 season was in full swing and we wasted no time filling our 3 limits. By 8:30 it was all over.

We had mallards, gadwall and widgeon. We sat there and called at birds for a little bit and watched as they would pigeon wing over and then maple leaf into the spread. It was fun to joke with the guys as they would say "that one would have been in the boat" The response was "not if you shot like you did earlier" We decided it was time to pick up the decoys and head into town for breakfast, equipment clean up a nap since we had all been up for around 29 hours at this point. God it was great to be duck hunting again. We motored back to the launch area took a few pictures and headed for town. We had more shooting to do in the Basin and 3 months ahead of us to cure our waterfowl desires.