I invite you to take the time and look through these last 47 postings loaded with action photos, stories, and videos. I hope you enjoy the small window view to this past season. One thing should be crystal clear; I produce hunts for my clients regardless of the challenges! I hunt day after day, and work very hard to put my folks safely into birds. After 20 years of being a professional guide, and with 40 years hunting experience, you learn a thing or two about providing a fantastic hunt with results regardless of what the weather throws at you! I look forward to having you in my boat this season....
Captain Ruben Perez
USCG Master License 50 Tons, Upon Near Coastal Waters
East Coast Guide Service www.SeaduckHunt.com
In addition to harvesting boatloads of beautiful eiders, white wing, surf, common scoters, oldsquaws (long-tails for the PC crowd), brant, blackducks, goldeneyes, greater and lesser scaups, common and red-breasted mergansers, and a bunch of other waterfowl-- we had some highlights!
Bands Collected by clients: 42 Borealis Eiders harvested: 9 (one V-notch)
King Eider: 1 The Results of this past season!!
Here's a selection of hunting shows filmed with me for national syndication. Hope you enjoy the variety of hunts I offer...
***Once again we have been selected as the leader of delivering great hunts--- The national syndicated TV show produced by Browning Arms "Browning The Best There Is" has filmed with us and broadcast their show on The Outdoor Channel.***
In the past, I have been featured in several other Television shows…. Mossy Oaks “Whistling Wings” came to hunt and get the best sea duck gunning footage around.
Yet another appearance, my service was featured in a sea duck hunt show that aired on the Versus Network. The show is called "In the Hunt". The show's host, Trevor Gowdy, son of Curt Gowdy (American sportsman) brought along as the "star" of the show Adam Vinateri, kicker at the time from the New England Patriots, and now from the Indianapolis Colts. He kicked the winning point in the last two Super Bowls the Pat's won!!!!
Other places you might have seen my hunts are in Mossy Oak "Whistling Wings 9" and “Whistling Wings 5” video with an eider hunt, and this additional appearance of eider and brant hunting--will be as exciting and action packed as the first!!
And let's not forget putting Dave 'The General' Gruber on his first sea duck hunt, on "Benelli's American Birdhunter".
When choosing a guide for your hunt of a lifetime, cost, should not be the only factor taken into account. I deliver quality hunts, with trophy quality birds, that are decoying to the gun. I offer the opportunity of shooting a variety of species like no other service can. Eiders-- Both Common North Atlantic and Borealis subspecies, an occasional King Eider, surf scoters, white wing scoters, common scoters, oldsquaws, brant, blackduck, common goldeneye, greater and lesser scaup, buffleheads, widgeons, gadwalls, occasional canvasbacks, ruddies, mallards, and yes, several are banded too...
My unique location is a wintering ground for many of these birds, very few ‘other guides’ can offer this! Take a look on how well they did in their hunts. Make notice to the variety of prime birds they have collected. My trips ARE 100% on the Eiders, and all hunters harvested, several different species when hunting with me regardless of the inclement weather!!
Be advised there's been a plethora of guide services cropping up in the last couple of years. Several "captains" claim they have been hunting ducks for X number of years, when in reality, that's not the case. Keep in mind, like any other service or goods you purchase in life, you get what you pay for... I have been in operation, and considered by several national sources as a premiere guide service for over 20 years. I am licensed by the United States Coast Guard, and fully insured for your protection. Other guides in the area trying to save money, are hunting you out of small (17-18 foot) tin boats , or cheap fiberglass composites. Why is that a problem? Very light metal boats, or cheaply made FG boats, don't have the weight, and get bounced around in the big Atlantic waters. Your NOT puddle duck hunting, and if the seas get snotty, you will be risking your life, not to mention not being able to get out and hunt for the day. And comfort goes out the window!! Furthermore, the motors they require, have less HP. Would you rather be in the Atlantic Ocean in a boat with a 50HP engine, or in one that has a 150 HP engine? Big water, require big, well made boats!
You will be gunning out of a new 21 foot Bankes Goliath boat powered by a Suzuki 150 HP. This vessel offers plenty of room and safety, in the big waters we hunt. I also have a fleet of layout boats by MLB Layouts that we use from time to time, for in-your-face action. Two one man Kevlar, and one Kalash one man, knows as the 'Cadillac' of the layout boats. The decoys are the best you can buy for this kind of hunt, BIG Quack decoys that run close to $500 per dozen-- no cost is spared to bring the best gear, location, and knowledge in making your hunt a successful, safe, and enjoyable one!! Safety is key, I also have an EPIB (distress radio beacon) that’s registered with NOAA, and the Coast Guard, in case we are in the need of immediate assistance.
When window shopping for a guide, keep that in mind--ask a lot of questions, and buyer beware! You can tell quite a bit from the photos the guide service let's you see. If there are only photos of the guide, his friends, or shabby looking birds, well, you know what you're in for. Take a look at my web page, the slide shows. You'll see lots of happy customers with piles of beautiful birds.
You will see mention of National television show appearances I have made... Please note, these shows are not self produced infomercials like other sea duck guide services are starting to do. Frankly, since their hunts do not have the quality of hunts to attract major National television shows to film them, they have begun to do the filming themselves. When a nationally syndicated Television show, films a hunting program, they want to make sure they will walk away with great footage for their time investment. Getting these hunts in two or three days of filming is not a simple matter if you don't have the abundance of birds, or the ability and knowledge to produce good hunts.
These "new sea duck guides”--are finding that it's not as simple as they thought to be a guide, and they will take a whole season to film a promotional DVD making it appear that you can expect an abundance of birds during your hunt with them. You decide who you want to book your hunt with-- a seasoned professional guide that has "been there and done that" and knows where to find the ducks, or a new 'guide' that is learning the ropes on your $$$?
During your hunts with me, you will be gunning out of a new 21 foot Bankes Goliath boat powered by a Suzuki 150 HP, just added to my fleet... This vessel offers plenty of room and safety, in the big waters we hunt. I also have a fleet of layout boats by MLB Layouts that we use from time to time, for in-your-face action. Two one man Kevlar, and one Kalash one man, knows as the 'Cadillac' of the layout boats.
I also advise that you book at least three days. (The norm is Mon-Wed or Thursday-Sat.) The major reasons are twofold. In New England, the weather is turbulent. Winds can kick up, making the gunning a challenge. In the past five years I have not asked a group to stay in the Motel and wait out a storm. We always have a great place to hunt. It's just better that after the travel, lodging, license, and other expense, you should have at least one fantastic perfect day. Last year two parties were here during a Nor' Easter (winds 45 mph, gust to 60 mph) and had a great time. They said it added to the atmosphere of the trip. I say it only added gray hairs to my head.
Although the gunning was challenging, to say the least, only one hunter came one bird short of his limit. With eiders, we have a great success ratio.
My hunts were also featured in a recent issues of Gray's Sporting Journal, Ducks Unlimited Books "Divers and Sea Ducks" by Gary Kramer, and “Misery Loves Company" by Bill Buckley. In several articles of DU Waterfowl Magazine, Waterfowl Hunter and Wildfowl magazine.
The Bird Hunting Report, a premier magazine, publishing updated critiques of guides and their services, has glowingly recommended my service several times.
Again, why do I mention all this... well my guide service produces great world class hunts, the kind that you read about and see on national television shows... the producers, writers and photographers coming on a hunt spend quite a bit of money and time to cover these hunts. They would not come with me if I didn't produce. There are dozens of guides, some good, some with instant expertise-- that they could have chosen. But as you see, they come to me.... and so can you. As mentioned unlike other guides that film their own hunts and show a biased image of their abilities… here you’re getting it from an independent source… and not something they can control and film throughout the season and make it look as good as they want. All the TV shows shot with me were on a 1-3 day hunt, just like you will experience.
Well this last December I did my first sea duck hunt on the east coast. I used East Coast Guide Service. Ruben came highly recommended for good reason. The man knows what he is doing when it comes to hunting big water. Mother Nature dealt us a bad hand when we were out there, but it didn't stop us from piling up the birds. The 1st day of the hunt we had 30+ mph winds which limited us where we could hunt, but Ruben pulled a few tricks out of his hat and got use into to some birds. That day we ended up shooting 9 plumaged out eiders, 3 dandy drake oldsquaws, drake goldeneye and a Black duck. 2 of the eiders that we shot were very special, one was a banded hen Eider that my best friend shot and the other was a drake Borealis which are very rare in those parts. I asked Ruben out of rare birds to shoot out there to only way to top those two birds would be to shoot a King Eider. So I thought we did pretty well that day and I got what I wanted 2 dandy old squaws.
We (myself, wife, and great hunting buddy) returned recently from our trip out east to case seaducks with East Coast Guide Service. Weather was an issue, but Capt. Perez stuck with it, found, and put us on birds. We were accompanied by another gentlemen from Wis. as well.
Day 1 was tough. We hunted in steady 30mph winds with gusts 40+. Although we had to cut our hunt a little short due the weather, we still managed 5 birds. 4 Eider and a Brant. We had plenty of opportunity to take more birds, but our shooting was less than stellar. Unfortunately we did not take a group pic this day, which we regret. With all the wind we just didn't have our head in the game after getting off the water. Following is a pic of our portion of the groups take.
Day 2 was a little less windy....20-25mph and steady, no gusts. We set up once again for Eider and had a fantastic shoot. Although the wind made of a bit of an awkward setup, the birds worked us well and we managed out limit of Eider, a couple Brant, and 3 long tails. We did loose 1 eider....it dove, never to return to the surface
Day 3 we opted to target Brant. This was our nicest day weather wise with wind only around 10-15mph. The Brant worked us well, and we took 10 and a Mallard. We called the hunt early, although had we stayed, I'm certain we could have filled our bag.
The best part was Capt. Perez lead me to my first band. I was lucky enough to take a banded Brant on our last day. I'm still waiting for the info, and will share when I receive it.
We truly had a great hunt and adventure. Capt. Perez did a fantastic job in guiding our hunt. If anyone is thinking of an east coast adventure, be sure to given Ruben a chance.
Had a group of longtime regulars get into some nice duck shooting. Weather has yet to give us a break-- so cold that the water bottles froze in a couple of hours. Wind was so strong that our hunting locations were limited, to just hunt a safe spot. Had lots of birds come by, but with a tailwind... gunning was hard to say the least.
Good thing this group did not let the conditions get in the way. Two of the eiders were sporting jewelry-- a first for one of the hunters. And a very nice long-tail was taken... only bird the hunter wanted
Had the great pleasure to guide two young couples these last few days. It was great to see them hunt together, and I have to admit, I was a bit jealous at the fact that these fellows had their ladies hunt with them. Heck, not only did they hunt, they hunted hard. In fact one day, the snow was coming down so hard; it was difficult to see 100 yards in front of you. We were in white out conditions!! The day before, was no better. The North West winds were whipping the ocean so hard, that the spray from the waves would be scattered like rain by the gusts! It’s fair to say, we were hunting in 3 footers, and when they became 5 footers plus-- the hunt ended! … NOT FUN! They had lots of opportunities at the eiders, but the pitching boat, the fast flying birds, with a good strong wind helping them get out of dodge quickly, made it a challenging hunt. Didn’t stack them, but did get some great prime birds.
Funny highlights of the snowy hunt… one of the huntresses shot a mallard that is a bit odd of sorts… two in the party are wildlife biologist, so they know better than the average bear if this is a hybrid or not… so I thought. Well, let’s just say there was some interesting discussion if this mallard was a Black/Greenhead cross. I’ll just say I stayed out of it… LOL.
The other funny part was that one of the ladies had never shot a bufflehead. I had joked with her that she better not shoot any of the ones that kept bombing our spread… Well, at one point, I had to take the boat to pick up a cripple that had sailed several hundred yards… When I returned, she had a prime buffie drake floating in the rig, and she was sporting a great smile. Hey, what can I say to that… it’s her hunt!
It was great fun having them in my boat. Their enthusiasm, at the face of extremely hard weather, made it bearable. They managed to harvest some great trophy birds, in fact, on the snow day, their total of 19, included brant, blacks, mallards, goldeneye, and oh, yes a buffie.
I would be interested to hear the experts in this forum chime in on the status of the maybe hybrid mallard… I'm not familiar with these funky looking ducks.
I'm spending some quality time with my family, taking our annual deer hunt trip! Visiting some great friends, and from the looks of it, missing some dandy snow storms....
This hunting is like hitting Disneyland, but much better!! I want my daughters to love to hunt, and appreciate the great outdoors.
Here are some photos of my girls with their results!! All three shot some dandy deer (all one shot kills), saw bigger ones, but could not get to them.
BTW, from the bit of blood on the eight year old, you can imagine, it's her first deer, and was she proud of it!!
Well, just wrapped up the hunts with my party from MI, same hunters that shot the banded eider, and Borealis drake!
We had to deal with strong, heck VERY strong winds--rain, ice storms, more rain, fog, oh yeah, more wind still managed getting into the eiders, and brant, with some looong tails to boot!
The hunters were great, took the weather in stride, and shared some great laughs.
Weather was NOT fun for sure... But we got into the ducks! Oldsquaws with some nice tails, Eiders with BLING, one sporting an abnormality (BOREALIS BaBy!!!), and a goldeneye with a blackduck chaser can’t get them by staying home....
BOREALIS!!! NOTE THE LOBE!! We were fortunate to have several taken on my boat this year...
