2008 SWAN HUNT

I was privileged enough to draw out for a Utah Sawn tag this year. Utah is one of seven states that allow swan hunting. The other states include Virginia and North Carolina in the East. North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nevada, and Utah is where you can hunt in the west.

Two friends of mine had also drawn out and wanted a chance to fill their tags as well. Preparation to fill the tags had come years earlier through endless hours of scouting for quality birds.

We began the days hunt by meeting two hours before the official shooting hours. This would give us enough time to launch the boat and take a half hour boat ride to a little bay we now call second chance bay.

At the time of launch the air temp was 27 degrees, not quite as cold as it has been on other hunts, but that first cold hunt of the year always seems to be the coldest. We got set up and birds were everywhere. The only problem, they were flying about 3 miles too high. No swan would be killed that morning.

In the afternoon we met up with the rest of our hunting team for that evening and after having a BBQ out in the marsh the birds began to work. We had two swans coming right at us and Ryan took his first ever swan, a real big bird to boot.
It was hit in the wing and glided out about 500 yards. Its companion had not been hit and landed with him. After a round of high fives and discussion about how we were going to retrieve him we were able to witness something I had never seen before.

The companion of the downed swan took flight and headed right to us. I knew that this would be my chance to bag my swan for the year. It took 3 shells to get him to the muddy waters of his death but here we are in all our glory in second chance bay.