From the top of the pacific flyway to the bottom, can one waterfowl pattern truly do it all?
Mario Friendy | Mossy Oak ProStaff Regional Manager
Alberta, Canada
My 2013-2014 waterfowl season started October 12th in the northern-most part of Alberta, Canada. The hunt was scheduled months in advance with several outdoor writers and the folks at Browning firearms. The hunt was to be held at one of my Mossy Oak ProStaffer’s outfitting operation in McLennan, Alberta. Kevin McNeil owns and runs Blue Sky Outfitters and was gracious enough to invite all of us for 4 days of waterfowl and predator hunting. I can honestly say that the scenery up there is astonishing and when I say we were in the northern-most territory, I mean it. We almost hit two moose on the way up the highway and we even had a moose cow and calf run through the decoys one morning. That’s not a normal thing for me.
While we were there, we hunted ducks and geese in pea fields and wheat fields, and we hunted a few cattail marshes in the afternoons. I can honestly say that the new Mossy Oak Shadow Grass Blades pattern blended in everywhere. The cattail marsh was where I saw the most in-sync camouflage pattern in nature I have seen in my 30-plus years of waterfowling. Every piece of my Browning clothing from my jacket to hat as well as the new A5 shotgun blended tremendously.
Sherwood, Oregon
Next stop on my waterfowl season would be back home to northwest Oregon, home to a lot of rainfall and very diverse landscapes statewide. We have flooded fields, small ponds and major river systems. It’s all here. I have been a true believer in the Mossy Oak Duck Blind pattern because of how wet we usually are out here. That pattern has dark spots and lots of it just blends in out here. Of course with the launch of Shadow Grass Blades, we usher in a new era of camouflage. This pattern has gone above and beyond my expectations of where it has worked especially for me in my home state. Everywhere from flooded corn ponds to canary grass marshes, this pattern flat out performs.
Sacramento, California
As the season progressed, I was invited to head down to Sacramento to hunt the wide open rice fields and marshes. With a lack of rain water this past year, there were a lot of rice fields that did not get flooded because of the drought. With that said, the birds were using a lot of the dry rice fields as well as the fields that got water because of the leftover food from farming it. We had the opportunity to hunt a few flooded rice fields, dry rice fields and a few marshes and once again the new Shadow Grass Blades pattern looked incredible.
