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Mike Merlo
Oregon, USA
My name is Mike Merlo. Currently I am 30 years old and owner of www.westcoastwaterfowl.com
If I'm not chasing mallards and canadas in Albertas Peace River Valley, the Prairie Pothole region of eastern Alberta or the tidal marshes of South East Alaska you can find me in Oregon's Willamette Valley down through the Klamath Basin and on through the central Valley of Northern and Central California chasing specks, snows, honkers and ducks.
In the mid 1980's as a young man, I began following my father into the flooded rice fields near the town of Gridley, California.
My favorite thing as a kid and will always be is the ability to be able to communicate with birds. I find it so intriguing that by blowing a whistle, duck or goose duck call, I can trigger a reaction from a bird and turn it back into shooting range. As I grow older my desire and pursuit grow stronger and I now find myself becoming the passionate hunter that my father once was.
In 2002 I got a job working as a part time guide at a duck club located in Willows California. The club was located in waterfowl mecca, but like most days in the rice, successful duck hunting became extremely weather dependant and I soon learned that if I was going to make it as a successful guide, I needed to have something in my back pocket. That something was learning how to call and hunt specks. As I bacame a more proficient speck caller my successs rate rose and the clients game straps became heavier and in turn the clients became happier.
I cut my teeth learning that the guiding business, like many other industries isn't always about the number of birds brought to the table, it was the challenge of completling a successful experience while maintaining a positive attitude and building relationships. |
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