IT’S DARK and raining on the Canadian prairie. Most sane individuals are nonetheless tucked in mattress or simply placing on a pot of espresso. But the group of us getting soaked to the bone setting out decoys and brushing in A-frame blinds in a reduce pea area are all certifiable. We’re jonesing for cupped wings, and the one method to get our repair is to get up earlier than the geese and geese fly from their roost waters to those grain fields to feed.
The morning is stuffed with the standard anticipation, plus an additional serving to. That’s as a result of we’re searching one of many oldest birds on the planet: the sandhill crane, a flying, 4-foot-tall velociraptor with a wingspan of as much as 7 ft. At first gentle their distinctive purrs break the prairie stillness, and we’re all now very awake. Their razor-sharp talons dwarf the spurs of any 3-year-old tom. Sandhills have lengthy and pointed beaks, and so they aren’t afraid to spear you or your retriever with them.
The first cranes glide into the decoys. Some of us have by no means hunted them earlier than, however even we are able to inform that after the sandhills commit, there’s no backpedaling. They are massive and clumsy and may’t achieve altitude quick sufficient as we increase our shotguns in unison. Most of the birds tumble from the sky in a tangle of wings and legs, however two sail into the peas. Our information, Dusty Brown, doesn’t hesitate to stomp via the muddy Saskatchewan stubble towards one among them. The chook spouts a vicious hiss and spreads its wings.
But Brown offers the crane a swift boot proper within the chest and it flops again. He finishes it shortly. He has to get the crane to the bottom to kill it and shield himself and his Lab, Briley. The second, much less skilled crane information is way extra tentative, dancing across the second sandhill like a nervous boxer within the opening spherical of a struggle.
“The first time one stood up and hissed at me, I did the same thing,” says Brown, who has since hunted cranes in Texas, season after season. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to attack me or my dog, and so I was hesitant.”
His expertise is the product of chasing the annual waterfowl migration from Canada south to the oil fields of Texas and again north in spring for the conservation snow goose order. The 50-year-old information has been doing this for greater than 20 years. Most core duck hunters undertake comparable journeys in some unspecified time in the future of their careers, beginning within the Prairie Pothole Region in September and calling it within the South come January, stopping at factors alongside the best way to intercept geese and geese.
“When the lakes and rivers freeze up, that’s the end of the season for a lot of hunters because the birds move on,” says Brown. “But for guys like me, it’s just another stop along the way. We never want our season to end. So we hitch the trailer, hop in our trucks, and follow the birds.”
A Way of Life
Like so many duck hunters who dwell a migratory life-style, Brown has been infatuated with waterfowl from an early age. A pal’s dad took him on his first hunt, floating a rubbish can filled with decoys into the marsh, dumping them out, after which coming again for the 2 boys. They each climbed into the can and used it as a blind whereas his pal’s father shot geese. During highschool, Brown labored for his dad, slinging pizzas within the bustling flyway of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. He saved all the cash he made slicing pepperoni to lease farm floor alongside the Pudding River. It flooded yearly, creating seasonal wetlands for geese.
The searching alongside the river was adequate to final a decade. Brown didn’t begin dwelling on the highway till his late 20s, when he started shopping for each goose name he might get his palms on.
“The calls really intrigued me, but I didn’t know anything about contest calling because the world championships in Stuttgart, Arkansas, were 2,000 miles away,” Brown says. “I won the Oregon state goose calling contest in 2001 and became a goose guide at 27 years old.”
That win led to competitors calling at contests throughout the nation. Back then you definitely needed to hearken to dwell callers to enhance (YouTube didn’t exist but), and that meant touring from state to state, studying from the most effective alongside the best way.
By then, waterfowling had Brown firmly in its grasp, and he solely wished to hunt extra and see new locations. That urge took him up and down the Pacific and Central flyways. The similar factor occurs to lots of duck hunters: the early mornings, feathers reducing via wind, tricking birds into the decoys. Some hunters can by no means get sufficient, and that’s Brown. He can’t cease. And he doesn’t need to.
“You see a lot of guides who are single because they have devoted their lives to this and a relationship doesn’t play into it,” says Angie Erickson, who hunts with Brown at her Curly Tail camp in Saskatchewan within the fall and spring. “It happened to me. Once you start, it’s an addiction. I hate to call it that, but that’s what it is. I have young twin boys and had to pull the reins in. I was consumed with setting spreads and fooling birds, and I was not spending enough time with my family. When I stopped, it was like going through detox.”
That’s the sacrifice this type of duck searching requires. You can lose your self within the migration, and it pulls many hunters away from the oldsters they love most. It’s onerous to observe hunters with extra freedom proceed to the subsequent duck camp whilst you head house and care for your duties. It could cause jealousy, check friendships, and even finish marriages. Brown has seen it occur time and once more. It’s the explanation, he says, he’s by no means married and by no means had kids. Because he made his alternative years in the past, he doesn’t have to decide on every season.
Brown received’t have the ability to move the data he’s gained as a information all the way down to a son or daughter, however he does share his experience with any hunter who’s prepared to pay attention. Unlike some guides who speak at their shoppers, Brown cares sufficient to show his one thing new. Because odds are they’re not as gifted as callers and may’t learn birds like Brown.
“Dusty has become one of my best friends in this entire world,” says Hunter Pickett, who started guiding with Brown in Canada and Texas when he was 21. “He’s helped me personally become a better guide and given me the knowledge to kill birds consistently so I can keep doing this for a living. I wake up at 4 a.m. eight or nine months out of the year to go hunt. That’s a great life for a duck hunter.”
Brown’s classes aren’t patronizing both. When I hunted cranes with him and that handful of different hunters, it felt like outdated pals sharing a morning collectively—the best way duck searching should all the time be.
Season of Change
Many guides who journey as a lot as Brown finally settle someplace. They in the reduction of on the variety of days they hunt or open outfitting companies of their very own. If Brown has one remorse, it’s that he has by no means efficiently labored for himself.
“We never want our season to end. So we hitch the trailer, hop in our trucks, and follow the birds.”
—Dusty Brown
He did attempt to open his personal information service as soon as in Alberta, with a pal. After years in transit—he’s gone via three Cummins diesel truck engines, which last as long as 350,000 miles apiece, within the final twenty years—Brown put down stakes. But it was dangerous timing. Just because the 2001 waterfowl season kicked off, terrorists flew into the World Trade Center. Air journey was suspended for only some days, however new flight restrictions and worry of one other assault brought on shoppers to cancel, and the enterprise went underneath.
It was a significant monetary hit for Brown, and it understandably soured him on ever proudly owning one other information service. The COVID-19 pandemic solely solidified his stance on by no means taking that probability once more as he watched many Canadian outfitters shutter their companies as a result of prolonged U.S.-Canada border closure.
“I’ve always worked for someone else,” Brown says. “I think that if I could have started a business here in Oregon, that’s what I would have done. But I just never felt comfortable doing that because we don’t have the bird numbers to make it sustainable.”
Still, not proudly owning an outfit has allowed Brown the liberty to maneuver on when he’s prepared for the subsequent journey. He can’t assist that the migration is in his blood. Even at 50, he continues to observe the birds as they make stops alongside their conventional routes whereas exploring new spots as migration patterns shift. Brown exhibits no indicators of slowing down.
“I still get excited as we come out of summer and the cooler months are upon us,” Brown says. “You start to see fields full of geese in late August, pay attention to how they act, and I just can’t wait to get on the road—to be there when the first birds come to the grain fields of Canada.”
This story initially ran within the Migrations Issue of Outdoor Life. Read extra OL+ tales.