Kaska Goose Lodge ~ 2008 News
Snow geese on the move west of Kaska
Three bears, plus one!
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2008
We have decided to cancel trips 1A and 1B due to the late spring, which raises concerns that the snow geese will not be in the area until early September. To ensure that our guests do enjoy good hunting we opted to start the season five days later than normal.
With the huge increase in fuel and air freight costs, the helicopter charter rate will be increasing for this fall. The rate per hour for 2008 will be U.S. $2,400 per hour.
Our long-time guests will be happy to know that our cook Melda Roberts will be returning to Kaska for the 2008 season. Melda cooked for us for several years at Minor Bay Lodge and also at a few years ago Kaska. Melda's breads and baked goods were always a hit with our guests. Retired MNR officer Gerry Spray will also be back with us at Kaska, after taking a few years off.
We're planning on heading into camp about August 23rd as we do have some maintenance jobs to do on the cabins, equipment and also some major work to do on the trails after last year's exceptionally wet season.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008
Our staff is assembling in Winnipeg today and will be driving 8 hours north to Thompson, MB first thing tomorrow morning and flying into the lodge the morning of August 24th. Our long-time guests will be happy to know that Melda Roberts is returning as our cook for the upcoming season. Gerry Spray is also reurning as an ARGO driver, and of course Raymond Wavey, who is something of a fixture at Kaska, will be returning to be in charge of the goose processing operation.
I'll be arriving in camp at the end of the month and our first guests are scheduled in camp on September 3rd.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2008
I arrived in camp on August 30th. It's been fairly warm here, and still is with today's high in the 70's. We are supposed to be getting cooler weather over the next few days, but still plenty of sunshine.
Last week it reached 90+ in the shade one day! The river is high and the Hudson Bay Coast is lush, green and wet with an abundance of feed for the geese - and bears (and the Kaska crew as well - we had a blueberry pie last night with fresh-picked Kaska blueberries!).
Conditions on the Coast are quite similar to last year. I saw quite a few flocks of 1,000 - 2,000 snows / blues, along with some smaller flocks numbering from a few dozen to low 100's right from York Factory until about 7 NM west of camp - then it was very sparse as far as snows went.
I did see significantly more flocks of white geese on the trip into camp this year vs. last year, which bodes well for the upcoming hunting season. There are good numbers of snows, blues and ducks in the Anabusco River area.
We didn't see many Canada's on the trip in, but there were a dozen large honkers flying to the Bay in front of the lodge this morning. There is lots of water in the duck ponds and I did see good numbers of ducks sitting on the ponds.
Our flight came in at high tide and all the snows were right along the coast - nothing was flying inland. We sighted a couple of large flocks - probably 5,000 plus going up and down on the eastern horizon the other day from the lodge. The birds appeared to be staging along the coast in preparation for the migration, but they have not starting their migration as yet.
The guys haven't seen any ptarmigan yet and they have been in camp for just over a week. However, there are lots of white bears around. I counted 40+ starting about 35 NM west of Kaska. There was one big boy on the island right by the airstrip last week, but he has since moved on.
There are a few black bears around camp this fall. We have a large male hanging around our garbage pit plus a fat sow with three healthy cubs came across the river just upstream of the lodge the other day.
The river is starting to drop, but is still flowing fairly fast with lots of debris floating by in front of the lodge. The next few days are supposed to be sunny with high temps in the mid-50's. The trails on the east side are under water in the low spots, but the western trails are reasonably dry.
Things are progressing well and we'll be ready to welcome the first hunters on Wednesday, September 3rd.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14,2008
At just past the half-way point of our goose hunting season our hunters have taken a total of 814 birds up to Sept 12th. The count is 378 dark geese, 413 snows / blues and 23 ducks.
Hunters are having no problem limiting out on Canada's. The other day Gary Sitton was hunting blind 5 West on the island and had several hundred Canada's walking around in his decoys. Since he had already taken his limit of dark geese for the day he had to be satisfied with merely watching and videotaping them.
The Kaska area is holding good numbers of both honkers and snows. The bumper berry crop, plus good growths of wild celery are keeping the geese well-fed. Temperatures have been quite moderate along our stretch of the coast with daytime highs reaching the mid-50's and even low 60's F. this past week and overnight lows staying near the 40 degree F. mark.
The winds shifted to the NE several days ago and brought in a fresh batch of snow geese to our hunting grounds as the migration starts to gather momentum. With favourable winds we are starting to see more migrating flocks of snows coming from the SE, but the plentiful food is causing the birds to stop and feed before moving on, giving our hunters some good shooting opportunities.
The abundance of water in the freshwater ponds and creeks has made for ideal conditions for ducks. Pintail, teal and mallards are abundant and offer good opportunities for duck hunters to shoot their limits.
The Sitton group was heli-hunting the Isle of Shrubs to the east of camp two days ago and the four hunters returned with well over 60 birds. Nellie, Jeff's Golden Labrador retriever, had her work cut out for her making over 45 retrieves with a couple of 500+ yarders to her credit. Nellie didn't wait to get back to camp as she just curled-up in the helicopter and fell fast asleep.
The polar bear numbers are as impressive as the number of geese our guests are seeing. We've counted over 100 of the big white bears between York Factory and camp with another 20 - 25 bears to the east of us within 20 miles. The bears look healthy and we are seeing a number of sows with two cubs. There have been three bears along the coast on our island - a sow with a cub and a large male. So far we haven't had any "close encounters" and we're hoping this continues.
We'll keep you posted as our season moves forward.
See you on the "Bay" this fall!
Randy Duvell
We have decided to cancel trips 1A and 1B due to the late spring, which raises concerns that the snow geese will not be in the area until early September. To ensure that our guests do enjoy good hunting we opted to start the season five days later than normal.
With the huge increase in fuel and air freight costs, the helicopter charter rate will be increasing for this fall. The rate per hour for 2008 will be U.S. $2,400 per hour.
Our long-time guests will be happy to know that our cook Melda Roberts will be returning to Kaska for the 2008 season. Melda cooked for us for several years at Minor Bay Lodge and also at a few years ago Kaska. Melda's breads and baked goods were always a hit with our guests. Retired MNR officer Gerry Spray will also be back with us at Kaska, after taking a few years off.
We're planning on heading into camp about August 23rd as we do have some maintenance jobs to do on the cabins, equipment and also some major work to do on the trails after last year's exceptionally wet season.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008
Our staff is assembling in Winnipeg today and will be driving 8 hours north to Thompson, MB first thing tomorrow morning and flying into the lodge the morning of August 24th. Our long-time guests will be happy to know that Melda Roberts is returning as our cook for the upcoming season. Gerry Spray is also reurning as an ARGO driver, and of course Raymond Wavey, who is something of a fixture at Kaska, will be returning to be in charge of the goose processing operation.
I'll be arriving in camp at the end of the month and our first guests are scheduled in camp on September 3rd.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2008
I arrived in camp on August 30th. It's been fairly warm here, and still is with today's high in the 70's. We are supposed to be getting cooler weather over the next few days, but still plenty of sunshine.
Last week it reached 90+ in the shade one day! The river is high and the Hudson Bay Coast is lush, green and wet with an abundance of feed for the geese - and bears (and the Kaska crew as well - we had a blueberry pie last night with fresh-picked Kaska blueberries!).
Conditions on the Coast are quite similar to last year. I saw quite a few flocks of 1,000 - 2,000 snows / blues, along with some smaller flocks numbering from a few dozen to low 100's right from York Factory until about 7 NM west of camp - then it was very sparse as far as snows went.
I did see significantly more flocks of white geese on the trip into camp this year vs. last year, which bodes well for the upcoming hunting season. There are good numbers of snows, blues and ducks in the Anabusco River area.
We didn't see many Canada's on the trip in, but there were a dozen large honkers flying to the Bay in front of the lodge this morning. There is lots of water in the duck ponds and I did see good numbers of ducks sitting on the ponds.
Our flight came in at high tide and all the snows were right along the coast - nothing was flying inland. We sighted a couple of large flocks - probably 5,000 plus going up and down on the eastern horizon the other day from the lodge. The birds appeared to be staging along the coast in preparation for the migration, but they have not starting their migration as yet.
The guys haven't seen any ptarmigan yet and they have been in camp for just over a week. However, there are lots of white bears around. I counted 40+ starting about 35 NM west of Kaska. There was one big boy on the island right by the airstrip last week, but he has since moved on.
There are a few black bears around camp this fall. We have a large male hanging around our garbage pit plus a fat sow with three healthy cubs came across the river just upstream of the lodge the other day.
The river is starting to drop, but is still flowing fairly fast with lots of debris floating by in front of the lodge. The next few days are supposed to be sunny with high temps in the mid-50's. The trails on the east side are under water in the low spots, but the western trails are reasonably dry.
Things are progressing well and we'll be ready to welcome the first hunters on Wednesday, September 3rd.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14,2008
At just past the half-way point of our goose hunting season our hunters have taken a total of 814 birds up to Sept 12th. The count is 378 dark geese, 413 snows / blues and 23 ducks.
Hunters are having no problem limiting out on Canada's. The other day Gary Sitton was hunting blind 5 West on the island and had several hundred Canada's walking around in his decoys. Since he had already taken his limit of dark geese for the day he had to be satisfied with merely watching and videotaping them.
The Kaska area is holding good numbers of both honkers and snows. The bumper berry crop, plus good growths of wild celery are keeping the geese well-fed. Temperatures have been quite moderate along our stretch of the coast with daytime highs reaching the mid-50's and even low 60's F. this past week and overnight lows staying near the 40 degree F. mark.
The winds shifted to the NE several days ago and brought in a fresh batch of snow geese to our hunting grounds as the migration starts to gather momentum. With favourable winds we are starting to see more migrating flocks of snows coming from the SE, but the plentiful food is causing the birds to stop and feed before moving on, giving our hunters some good shooting opportunities.
The abundance of water in the freshwater ponds and creeks has made for ideal conditions for ducks. Pintail, teal and mallards are abundant and offer good opportunities for duck hunters to shoot their limits.
The Sitton group was heli-hunting the Isle of Shrubs to the east of camp two days ago and the four hunters returned with well over 60 birds. Nellie, Jeff's Golden Labrador retriever, had her work cut out for her making over 45 retrieves with a couple of 500+ yarders to her credit. Nellie didn't wait to get back to camp as she just curled-up in the helicopter and fell fast asleep.
The polar bear numbers are as impressive as the number of geese our guests are seeing. We've counted over 100 of the big white bears between York Factory and camp with another 20 - 25 bears to the east of us within 20 miles. The bears look healthy and we are seeing a number of sows with two cubs. There have been three bears along the coast on our island - a sow with a cub and a large male. So far we haven't had any "close encounters" and we're hoping this continues.
We'll keep you posted as our season moves forward.
See you on the "Bay" this fall!
Randy Duvell
A successful heli-hunt
