Charlie Summerville, Trophy Sea Ducks
Brenden Gallagher for SPLIT REED
Charlie Summerville of Aleutian Island Waterfowlers has long been renowned for his efforts in pioneering sea duck hunting in Alaska and in this week's article we take a deep dive into sea duck hunting and some of the tactics and modifications Charlie has created to become one of the most successful sea duck hunting guides in all of Alaska. Across North America there are fifteen species of sea ducks including some more commonly known as just divers, these include eiders, scoters, goldeneyes, mergansers, harlequins, long-tailed ducks, and bufflehead. Of these species, however, there are a notable few that are prime targets on many sea duck hunters' minds i.e. the trophy sea duck hunts which are the eiders, scoters, harlequin, and long-tailed duck. The season's hunts take place from the end of October through January and according to Charlie more notably the trophy sea duck season really starts up for them in November.
The Set-Up
“Down in the lower 48 it's common to see a double anchor setup on boats and with decoys, we don’t use as big of spreads typically, because of the conditions. For instance, if you watch a Jeff Coats video from over in Maryland, those guys will anchor their boats and they’ll put 3-5 strings of decoys all around them, something like 4-8 dozen decoys, and they're all anchored up on a plant bed at 15-30 feet deep. In places like Maine, they’ll double anchor their boat and snap-on decoys off the bow and stern of the boat and make it like a big wall, which is an old traditional Maine long line technique, and often they'll string a line out parallel with the boat. We just can't do that stuff out here with layout boats, it's just too much current and wind so we use a free-floating technique. We have Core Sound layout boats which is a custom boat and is one of the safest and nicest, we run two-two man Core Sound layout boats and a single UFO layout boat.”
“We use our big boat to help set out the layout boats and we set those anywhere from 150-300 yards apart, each boat has its own specific string of decoys and we might have one boat on the inside where the long-tailed ducks are on the rock piles in 15-30 feet of water and then we might have one boat out in 50-60 feet of water for the eiders and the scoters. Everything we do in open water is clipped on with long lines, sometimes they are anchored independently or they are anchored to the boat and free-floating and swinging depending on the tides. The tides and the wind have a huge effect because you want to have the wind at your back so the birds are landing in your face. A difficult thing for us is sometimes the tide will be going one way and the wind is going another and you have to force a boat to do something it doesn't want to do. In those small layout boats, it's pretty rare that you double anchor them because with the tides and the current a wave could come over and catch one edge and suck it down just like how the bill on a Rapala goes down with the current so hunting in the big water and the tides is very specialized and it's also a safety factor. What we typically do is run one anchor off the back so that the boat can swing and then we’ll run a poly-ball 15 feet from the boat so the anchors are not pulling the back of the boat down. Depending on what we are hunting we’ll paint the poly-balls black and white or we just leave them orange because the sea ducks will actually cue into those orange buoys because they are used on the crab pots out in the ocean and there are thousands of them out here so it's just normal for the birds to see them. I’ll even purposely put out orange poly-balls at the end of my decoy line just to grab their attention and so they see the decoys”.
“For the front of the boat you’ll snap on a line and put out your decoys and we also use decoy mats to try and help break up having the decoys in just a straight line. That way the birds will see those single decoys and start following those up and they’ll see that raft of birds which is more natural where there are 6-10 birds clumped up in a little group and they’ll want to land right next to those and at that point their right up in your grill at 20-40 yards in front of you. We also do a lot of flagging for sea ducks, whether it's just a black flag or a flag with a little white on it, it's just something to grab their attention because when you’re in open water, the areas we typically hunt, it is three to seven miles across so those birds could be a quarter of a mile away on either side of you. However, we get them narrowed down with structure and by knowing their flight paths by scouting and scouting is a little bit different because you have to get out on the water and watch where they're feeding which is where you want to set up. Typically on a reef or kelp beds or clam beds, they are feeding on, so you learn it almost like fishing because you're looking at a depth sounder and underwater structure”.
Harlequin
The harlequin is one of the smallest sea ducks there are two recognized populations in North America but the population that makes up Alaska’s birds occurs from Alaska to B.C., southwest Alberta to high elevation areas in the pacific northwest. “They're called rock ducks and a lot of the harlequin hunting happens from shore and off points because they feed right off the edges of the shoreline and the rocks. If the weather permits it, hunting from the layout boats is more effective, we’ll set out two or three fingers of just Harlequin decoys and or decoy mats”.
Common Eiders and Scoters
Common eiders are the largest duck species in the northern hemisphere. There are around seven different subspecies of common eider four of which are found in North America and for our friends at Aleutian Island Waterfowlers that would be the Pacific Eider, the heaviest of all subspecies with males averaging just shy of six pounds. Following in the shoe steps of diversity, there are several different species of scoters that are hunted in Alaska. Black, Surf and White-winged scoters are true trophy diver sea ducks and there is no shortage of wing shooting to be had when they do it right in the decoys. Surf scoters are the most unmistakable of the three with males sporting vibrant reds, yellows, and whites contrasted against an all-black body. White-winged scoters are the largest of the three species and males are a beautiful matte black with a distinctive white marking behind their eyes. The smallest of the three and one of the least studied ducks in North America is the Black scoter. Males are also all black except for a vibrant yellow knob at the base of their bills. “Our spreads for eiders and scoters are very similar and we typically run eiders connected to the boat. What we’ll do is run a 50-yard lead of the front of the boat with a mat of decoys and then on the back of that run just a single line of eiders. Then we’ll drop a second line off the side of the layout boat but not hooked to it so that string would be double anchored, where once the layout boats are set up you're sort of setting a wing line out to the side with all scoters. The birds generally like to stay with their species and what they're seeing is those blacks or browns of the decoys like the scoters and eider hens. When it comes to a hen to drake ratio I’m probably running a 4:1 ratio, hens to drakes for the eider hunting. Twenty-five years ago when we started sea duck hunting there were no eider decoys, you could find scoter decoys but not eiders, you had to make them so we used to just buy Magnum mallard hens because a brown Magnum mallard versus a hen eider they both just look like a big brown duck floating around out there, so we just give a few of them a little paint with some white or an orange bill to make them look a little more realistic. Now we use all-foam decoys because they are durable and they don't sink when they get shot and we custom paint them all ourselves”.
Long-Tailed Duck
One of the more odd ducks in trophy sea duck hunting is the long-tailed duck (or oldsquaw) and it is one of the few trophy sea ducks that hunters in the lower 48 may see while nowhere near the ocean, as some populations, migrate through the great lakes region. In addition to this, they are extremely adept at diving and have even been recorded diving to depths of up to 239 feet. “With long-tailed ducks, you have to put out more of a specific decoy spread just for them. You can kill common eider, scoters, and harlequin all in the same spread but when guys are specifically targeting long-tails we’ll mainly just put out long-tailed decoys and the same principle goes for scoters, with just that standard string of decoys in the front and a couple of wing lines on the side of the layout boats”.
King Eider
King eiders are undoubtedly some of the most unique and sought-after trophy birds in North America, it also nests farther north than most other waterfowl species. There is both a Pacific and Atlantic population of king eiders additionally they are one of the largest duck species in North America only slightly smaller than their cousins the common eider. Battling heavy winds and freezing ocean spray, Aleutian Island Waterfowlers pioneered king eider hunting in the Pribilof islands on Island X, and over the years they've become damn good at it. From 2008-to 2020 Charlie and his crew have achieved success rates of nearly 100% and have been voted the world's number one king eider hunting destination for over 19 years in a row. “There also didn't use to be king eider decoys, the first decoys were E. Allen decoys from Michigan and they were basically a decorative decoy. The first two dozen decoys that I bought were E. Allen/Magnum eider decoys and they were $1800 a dozen and they're so big that by the time they get up here, there was another $300-$400 in shipping. The first time you screw up, the tide and the current switch, you anchor them too short and not in the right spot, the ice flow comes, hits the front, and sucks them underwater and you lose $2000 worth of decoys in a matter of five minutes you realize that maybe we better do something a little different… so there has been a big trial and error period”.
If you're not afraid of the wet, cold, and waves, Aleutian Island Waterfowlers is certainly the place for you. Not only is the hunting phenomenal but it takes place in America’s last frontier, a place steeped in scenic views, wildlife, and ocean spray.
Note to Future Hunters: In Alaska, non-residents are allowed 20 sea ducks per year of which you may shoot 4 of any one species, so shoot carefully and pick out the mature drakes! For up-to-date regulations and laws regarding waterfowl harvest always refer to the state's regulations.
References: Ducks, Geese, and Swans of North America; Guy Baldassarre
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