Freighter got a chance to hunt Harsens Island on Saturday.  He has never hunted Harsens before so it was a new experience for him.

Harsens Island is located on the St. Clair Flats.  It is a bit of a production to get there because you have to take a ferry to get to the island.  Once on the island, the hunters can enter “the draw” for the 3,355 acre managed waterfowl area which is in the St. Clair Flats Wildlife Area.  The St. Clair Flats Wildlife Area is part of the largest fresh water delta in the US and offers flooded agriculture, marsh areas and open water for hunting.  The draw is just as sounds: hunting parties put their names in and they get to pick their hunting areas in the order that their names are drawn.  It is a long way to go and you hope you get a good draw but even if you don’t, you can head off to areas outside of the managed area and try your luck especially if you have some experience in the area and a boat.

If you are lucky enough to get a spot and hunt in the managed area, there are rules:

• The use of spinning wing decoys is prohibited.
• Hunters allowed 18 shells each with largest permitted shot size No. 1.
• Drawings occur every day of the waterfowl season. Mornings at 5:30 a.m. and afternoons 11:30 a.m.
• Both individuals and parties of 2-4 can participate in the permit drawing.
• The first two days of the season the drawing will only be open to parties of 2-4 that have a pre-established reservation.

The hunters got a decent draw so they selected an area with flooded corn and set up.

Hubby and Freighter were hunting with their friend so he was set up a little further down.  There was no one hunting around them so they could spread out within their hunting area without worrying about getting too close to other hunters.

Freighter waited patiently on his stand.  The water is not deep, but it can be cold so hubby used a stand to keep Freighter out of the water.

The migration has been slow this season due to the warmer weather.  There are a lot of birds up north still.  Some hunters did not see any birds or fire their guns on Saturday, but hubby and his pal made out OK with 2 fat Mallards and a Wood Duck.

If you hunt a managed area, you have to check your birds in with the DNR on the way out so they get a count of the birds taken.  You can see that to date the numbers have been fairly low.  Weekly Counts For Harsens Island.

Freighter has not had a lot of experience riding in a boat but his manners were good and he sat or waited in the boat as he was told.  He has not had a lot of waterfowl hunting experience either.  He is so used to having the birds presented out in front of him because his training has been hunt test oriented.  It doesn’t always happen that way when you are hunting and it confused Freighter a bit when a couple of the ducks were behind and then one fell in the opposite direction.  He retrieved the birds, but he needed to be handled to two of them.  As he gains experience, he should learn to watch in all directions, even behind him, for birds.

One more photo of Freighter with hubby.