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Klamath Snow Hunt

BY BILL MAYS
WON FIELD REPORTER

LOWER KLAMATH - Shooting green head mallards in a snowstorm, with high winds, and temperatures in the teens, you find out what you’re really made of, and do you really love this sport. For these "Sacramento Boys," who have been hunting in mild temperatures in the 60-70 degree range, this was a new challenge.

As my hunting partners, Gary Silva, Mike Losher, Steve Brim, and I headed up I-5 with every piece of fowl weather gear we owned and known to man, we were ready to take anything Mother Nature had in store.

I’ve booked the same weekend, the weekend after Thanksgiving, for the past few years and had some outstanding hunts. Our Guides of choice are Jim Szemenyei, and Phil Brown of Wild Times Guide Service From Merrill Oregon. Both Szemenyei and Brown are excellent callers and have a vast knowledge of the Klamath Basin.

We awoke Saturday morning with a foot of snow on the ground, and snowflakes as big as silver dollars coming down hard and heavy and our guides were already in line to enter the Lower Klamath Refuge. They told us we would be hunting unit 7 which they chose because it was a newly flooded field. Mallards love newly flooded fields and the birds were working into the field the last couple of days. Our guides know we take the long trip to shoot mallards. The Klamath Basin is still one of the few places you can say; "I’m only going to shoot mallards today."

The newly flooded smartweed field was only 1 ft deep, and would have made it very difficult to get your basic boat and outboard motor into the field. Brown used a beaver- tail motor to get us to the pond we were going to shoot. I’ve never used or hunted with a motor of this type. It’s like a go-devil with the same principal. I couldn’t believe how it just powered through the mud and tule marsh, any other prop motor would have knocked off a blade or lost a sheer pin.

Action started at first light. Mallards were coming from the fields behind us, wave after wave. Our shooting was something to be desired, with snow and wind, it took us awhile to adapt to the shooting conditions. We were shooting automatic shotguns and the actions kept freezing up with the cold temperature. We finally figured out the lead and a way to keep the actions warm by holding and covering the actions with our gloves.

The snow didn’t seem to bother the way the ducks worked into the decoys. I don’t know how they could see the decoys with the heavy snowfall. But they work just like it was clear day and into the wind. Szemenyei had to get out of the blind every 10 or 15 minutes and dunk the decoys to get rid of the snow build up on the decoys. While Szemenyei was dunking the decoys, Brown was driving the boat around the pond to keep the pond from freezing and giving the ducks open water to land.



Mallards on Ice - Gary Silva, Steve Brim, Mike Losher and Wild Times Guides, on both ends Jim Szemenyie, and Phil Brown piled these mallards for a great mallard shoot on Lower Klamath. WON photo by Bill Mays.
We ended up shooting 15 mallards for the day, and should have had more. Sunday was not as productive as Saturday. We only shot 4 ducks and a Ross Goose. Our guides chose to hunt open water, and we were breaking 1-inch ice as the boat worked its way to the spot.

It was like a different planet with everything white and frozen. We only seen a handful of ducks all morning, so we picked up around 10 am and headed for the boat ramp.


Wild Times Guide - Phil Brown displays the quality hunting in the Lower Klamath Basin. With the use of a "Beaver Tail" motor he was able to hunt a shallow, newly flooded, smartweed field. WON photo by Bill Mays.
"The ducks were still in the Basin, but they had to acclimate to the weather conditions. Many times the birds don’t fly the day after a snow storm," said Szemenyei. There are still plenty of birds in the area but the colder weather should start pushing the birds to the Sacramento Valley.

"When Tule Lake freezes solid, the Honker hunting is very good and exciting," said Szemenyei. Both Szemenyei and Brown guide honker hunts and are without a doubt some of the best goose callers around. If you would like to book a hunt with Wild Times Guide Service they can be reached at 1-888-925-Wild.