Twenty some years ago we had a lot of Bluebills on the New River. I had an old blind at Hospital Point that was fairly productive.
One day in January we went up to Pamlico Point to hunt our blind on Mouse Harbor. We shot a bunch of ducks, I think four of us came close to our 7 Bluebill and 7 Scoter limit that day. It was a lot of shooting and a lot of hard work. We didn't get home until 2100 or so. My Dad and a friend of his both said they were too worn out to hunt the following day and my partner had to work, so I planned on taking the day off.
Woke up early and went out to check the weather, it looked too good to pass up. So I packed up my gear, got my Chesapeake Bay dog - Hoss, and we headed out to Hospital Point. Most of the time we just launched the boat right over the beach behind the blind, but the tide was too low and I had to launch at the Marina. Had a really stiff NE wind blowing and I got soaked on the boat ride to the blind. Maybe soaked isn't the right word, because it was cold enough that it all froze. I was literally frozen to the boat by the time I got to the blind. Started wondering if I had used good judgement in coming out at all. Got the decoys in the water and got myself and Hoss situated in the blind and sat back to wait on the ducks.
Hoss and I sat there munching on some cold, fried chicken livers. Each time I'd have one, I'd give him one then wrap up the foil and set them aside for a while. Not a sign of a duck till a half hour after shooting time. Single Greater Scaup came sailing into the wind right up the trailers and I dropped him. Hoss retrieved him and we each had another chicken liver. 30 minutes later another duck, another shot, another retrieve and another chicken liver. 30 minutes later...you know the drill. It was amazing. You could have set your watch by the 30 minute intervals between ducks. Well, we repeated this deal 5 times and by then we ran out of chicken livers.
I discussed things with Hoss and apologized for running out of snacks. He indicated that maybe we should go on home, but I still needed two birds to fill my limit. Guess what? 30 minutes later a nice flock of Bluebills turned on the decoys and came right in. I unlimbered the old 870 and killed a triple. Even though it happened pretty fast, I remember thinking after I killed the first two, that was the limit. But Hoss and I had worked hard and waited patiently for three hours to get a limit so I pulled the trigger on that last one just as sort of a reward for being good hunters.
The boat ride back was cold and wet but well worth it. When I got back to the house, my partners from the day before were waiting on me to clean the ducks. Maybe I said that wrong. They weren't waiting to help me clean the birds I had just shot, they were waiting on me to clean the birds we had shot the day before. They seemed shocked that I had brought in eight more and chided me for shooting 'one too many'.
One day in January we went up to Pamlico Point to hunt our blind on Mouse Harbor. We shot a bunch of ducks, I think four of us came close to our 7 Bluebill and 7 Scoter limit that day. It was a lot of shooting and a lot of hard work. We didn't get home until 2100 or so. My Dad and a friend of his both said they were too worn out to hunt the following day and my partner had to work, so I planned on taking the day off.
Woke up early and went out to check the weather, it looked too good to pass up. So I packed up my gear, got my Chesapeake Bay dog - Hoss, and we headed out to Hospital Point. Most of the time we just launched the boat right over the beach behind the blind, but the tide was too low and I had to launch at the Marina. Had a really stiff NE wind blowing and I got soaked on the boat ride to the blind. Maybe soaked isn't the right word, because it was cold enough that it all froze. I was literally frozen to the boat by the time I got to the blind. Started wondering if I had used good judgement in coming out at all. Got the decoys in the water and got myself and Hoss situated in the blind and sat back to wait on the ducks.
Hoss and I sat there munching on some cold, fried chicken livers. Each time I'd have one, I'd give him one then wrap up the foil and set them aside for a while. Not a sign of a duck till a half hour after shooting time. Single Greater Scaup came sailing into the wind right up the trailers and I dropped him. Hoss retrieved him and we each had another chicken liver. 30 minutes later another duck, another shot, another retrieve and another chicken liver. 30 minutes later...you know the drill. It was amazing. You could have set your watch by the 30 minute intervals between ducks. Well, we repeated this deal 5 times and by then we ran out of chicken livers.
I discussed things with Hoss and apologized for running out of snacks. He indicated that maybe we should go on home, but I still needed two birds to fill my limit. Guess what? 30 minutes later a nice flock of Bluebills turned on the decoys and came right in. I unlimbered the old 870 and killed a triple. Even though it happened pretty fast, I remember thinking after I killed the first two, that was the limit. But Hoss and I had worked hard and waited patiently for three hours to get a limit so I pulled the trigger on that last one just as sort of a reward for being good hunters.
The boat ride back was cold and wet but well worth it. When I got back to the house, my partners from the day before were waiting on me to clean the ducks. Maybe I said that wrong. They weren't waiting to help me clean the birds I had just shot, they were waiting on me to clean the birds we had shot the day before. They seemed shocked that I had brought in eight more and chided me for shooting 'one too many'.
No comments:
Post a Comment