The Eastern Shore

In any collection of waterfowl hunting stories the Eastern Shore of Maryland needs to be included. I was stationed at HQMC and my brother Tom was attending the USNA over in Annapolis. He was befriended by a professor who happened to own a 100 acre farm just outside Centreville, MD. He let us hunt on the farm, exclusively for 3 years. Hard to comprehend a man that generous, most landowners on the Eastern Shore are hard to deal with.

The Prof had a couple really nice pit blinds and one small fence row blind on the farm, which was one big cornfield. He also had a nice pond on the farm and a small house that he rented out. He even let us use his decoys which he kept in an equipment shed on the farm.

We soon found out that decoying geese in the fields in Maryland was not an easy task. In two years that I hunted there I probably only had half a dozen flocks of birds actually come in to my decoys. Most all the shooting was pass shooting at birds that came close to take a look, but decided against it. I think Tom killed 18 geese there the year before I hunted. Together we killed 39 one Winter and 19 the next. Tom hunted a couple of times the following year, but I don't think he had a whole lot of success. I killed 2 Snow Geese and 1 Mallard and everything else was Canadas. We had some great times. Killed some, missed some, froze some, laughed a lot, roughed up a few shins climbing out of the pits. All in all, an unforgettable experience.

One day I was there by myself and it looked to be a good weather day. Cold, heavy overcast, windy. The type of day I love the most. Just about shooting time, it took a turn for the worse; it started sleeting. The Prof's blinds had a solid roof over half the pit and wire over the rest so I just tucked back under the roof and stayed out of the weather. 15 minutes after shooting time I had my limit. Birds were walking around in the decoys, they did everything but climb into the blind with me. Then my good luck continued. Rich Forfa and a friend of his who trained retrievers showed up and needed some geese to train with. I gladly gave them the limit I had and went back to the pit and had another limit down in no time at all.

We got acquainted with the fellow renting the house from the Prof, and he was a hunter as well. He was almost exclusively a duck hunter. He shot geese for something to eat, but when I asked him why he didn't shoot pheasants, quail, rabbits, etc., he merely said "Why?" A true duckman, raised on Barnegat Bay, NJ.

He introduced Tom and I to Sea Duck hunting. We shot boatloads of Scoter and Oldsquaw on the Chesapeake Bay. We shot in Eastern Bay and at the mouth of the Chester River, depending on the wind and the weather. Great shooting sport. I still pursue Sea Ducks and still love it.

I guess we didn't hunt or shoot all that the Eastern Shore had to offer, but we had some great shoots and some fun times. I have told a lot of people since then, that I still think of someday moving up there. The people, the land, the wild game, the seafood and the history of the place make it very appealing.