My First Drake King Eider

I have to say on day two it was after lunch and I still had not gotten a King Eider…..a drake anyway. On day one I was in the boat with Tom and John. What started out to be a banner day weather and bird wise faded quickly with a snow squall that turned into a whiteout!! You couldn’t even the see the longline of decoys from the boat. During our setup you could clearly see what was going to take place had the weather not gotten the best of us. The way Kings fly offshore or for a more matter of fact is very early. I say early but like I mentioned; shooting time was roughly around 10:34 am or so every morning. From shooting time until around noon is your primetime shot at getting on the Kings. If they don’t like the first set up; Capt. Charlie will try it again somewhere else until it happens. On this morning I had anchor duty which is where you sit in the front of the boat obviously. I had the time of my life!!! Here I was in the famous Bering Sea in a well built 17ft. Bankes duck boat just getting bamboozled by occasional waves. Everything I had was soaked including my shell bag which I inadvertently left open and by the time I looked down had six inches of ice cold, salty Bering Sea water in it……along with my camera. I have a cool little 10 megapixel ruggedized camera that is supposed to be waterproof to a certain amount of footage, freeze proof for a certain amount of time, as well “ding” proof if it’s dropped. It’s traveled with me from Alaska and back in 09, to Maryland and all parts of Texas where I hunt and fish and worked like a champ!!! I promise you when I saw it laying in saltwater I thought it was doomed but it still kept clicking after I dried it off.

Speaking of salt……I’ve swam in the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans both, and tasted salt water. The water in the Bering Sea has to have the highest salt content of any ocean, gulf or sea water I’ve ever accidentally had the pleasure of tasting. Every time I licked my moustache it just tasted like I dumped the sea salt shaker at home directly on my tongue! One time I turned around to tell Capt. Charlie something and just as soon as looked back the other direction……bam!!!! Covered in Bering Sea glory again! All I could do is laugh as I had my open from talking and took it right in the grill!!!! It’s humorous now but I can still remember my eyes burning ferociously from the salt. Man it was awesome!!!! So on day one……Mother Nature and the old man of the sea got the best of us. I did take a hen that turned out to be a little younger than I wished for a mount but you make what you can of a day on the Bering Sea. The next day could end up being a blow out……you just never know?

Day two arrives and our group heads to one of the famous points to try our luck there. Wind is right for us for retrieving; kind of overcast and not to extremely cold. One problem though…..every flock of Kings flew from the 100 yard range out. Man it killed me to see so many King Eider flying out of range. You can’t dictate the movements of wildlife but my hunt was reaching the half way point with no big drake yet. Our group went back for lunch and shortly after we finished; the door to the hunter’s part of the camp opened with Charlie saying get your stuff and let’s go…….the boat is still in the water and we killed Kings this morning and they’re still moving. He only had to tell me once!! Although I was still excited to get out; the pessimist in me started to rear its ugly head. I just thought that maybe this wasn’t the year for me on my traveling duck and goose trips as it is historically so I mentally prepared myself for an Island X limit of “everything else”. We could still see flocks of Kings and everything else moving so we set out the decoys. All the bird movement was a little further offshore than he liked as far as taking the boat out more. So we dropped the decoys and would try a drift to see if we could get under a flock. We moved around for a while with no luck so we decided to head back to sit on the decoys for a little bit before we went in. Once we spotted the decoys; we turned the motor off to drift into place so I could throw the anchor. As I moved to the front of the boat; between swells about 100 yards out I see a monster King Eider drake that had swam out of our decoys. Dammit I couldn’t stand it!!! I told Charlie and grabbed my shotgun in anticipation that he would see the boat and take flight for me to be able to hopefully get a passing shot. He gets up and appears to be heading towards us in the air. OK….now I’m getting my sea legs into shooting legs and take a shot only to miss but I saw my shot string and knew he was in range. The big drake went left to right in front of the boat and as I turned to shoot; my wader boot gets hung up in the anchor that I was originally getting ready to throw out. This whole time I never take my eyes off the big drake and by the time I got to where I could shoot; my shot would be shooting a bird going away from me about 60 yards. Having patterned my shotguns in preparation for this trip with chokes to handle high density loads……I fired!!! In an instant the King flipped his head back landing in the water upside down. I looked at Charlie and he looked at me and promptly said what he told us on day one……………”Shoot him again”!!!!!!! He shot and I shot again to insure the hearty sea duck would not dive and pop up 200 yards from the boat. Looking back I can say the time and the money I spent on new chokes and high density loads paid off because I had just probably made the shot of my life when it counted most. You talk about elated!!!!!! I’m an excitable guy anyway but my emotions got the best of me as we slowly headed toward to my first drake King Eider. I can only imagine what the look on my face was as I picked him up out of the water……..

Other than the trips I’ve spent with my father……this was by far the greatest moment of my waterfowling career!!!! Finally……….and he was a mature specimen perfect for mounting!!!!!! Beautiful!!!!!!