Gema and I duck hunted on the Colorado river a few times this season. She performed beyond my expectaions, she has great genes. This was Gema's first duck, she lept off the ice shelf into the icy river like it was no big deal. I had already tested the ice shelf before I sent her out because I knew I had to grab her to get her out of the river. After that, I found some shelter along the canyon wall, dried her off with snow, and took this pic.

The terrain we hunted was in the tight South Canyon shared by I-70, the railroad, and the Colorado river. The hunt is a walk down the tracks in the narrow South Canyon - shooting towards the interstate - lol. It was pretty cold walking around in 2' of snow with trains roaring past me. The wind and rush of the river, plus the noise dampening of the snow really muffled the sound of the trains (especially the Amtracks), most engineers would sound thier horns a couple times to let me know they were on their way.

I started using steel shot and quickly figured out it doesn't work. I watch the bb mass go right through the duck and didn't phase it, weird. Can't use lead these days so I went into town and bought some heavishot- $23 for 10 shells. It's still some kind of steel so I had to stick with the modified choke. I now use Bismuth shot exclusively.

You see Gema up to her fenders here while writing her name in the snow.

Our house is at 6000' and it sits on the sunny side of the mountain. We seldom get huge dumps of snow, never enough to close the schools. This storm didn't close the schools.

We have had better moisture in the Colorado Rockies this year, in fact it's raining right now so I thought I would catch up on some pics.