Plan B

One day Morris Whitfield and I were hunting out of his blind #74. He named his blinds for how many birds he killed from them the first day he ever hunted there. Yes, I said the first day! That was before I started hunting with Whit. After a few years with me as his partner he started adhering to the hunting laws, a little. Anyhow, we shot a few Scoter early in the morning and got one pass on Bluebills about 1000. Other than that we weren't seeing much. Morris was getting itchy, wanting to leave and get back to his Jack Daniels. I encouraged him to stay a little longer. The weather was changing a little, clouding up , and the wind coming up, so he agreed to stay till noon.

Shortly after that we had a bunch of Canvasbacks give us a look. Whit said if they decoyed he was going to shoot (the season was closed on Cans). I said fine. They came in and left minus a nice pair of drakes. We sent both dogs and gathered them up in a hurry. Morris hid them back behind the blind and sprinkled them with Black Pepper. He said a Game Warden had busted him once by turning a Lab loose to search around his hunting area, and the Lab found some hidden birds. We settled back in the blind and in no time another flock of Cans came by. Same result.

Well, even Whit could tell it was time to go, so we came up with our plan. While I picked up the decoys he tied several anchors to the feet of each of the Canvasbacks. He said if a boat approached us too close on the way in that I should drop them over the side. So we headed in towards the landing but instead of going to the ramp we turned and went way up to the head of Jim Creek. A friend owned the land at the head of the creek and Whit said we'd walk back down there and pick up our birds after dark. Sounded good. Got way up the creek and all of a sudden right ahead of us was a pretty big boat. We had no clue what was going on. But we didn't stick around to find out.

Got back out in the open and Morris asked me what I wanted to do. I said to execute Plan B. He asked exactly what that was. I told him to approach Zool's Crab House at full speed and hold as close to the seawall as he could. He didn't ask why, he just did it. When we were behind the Crab House, out of plain sight, I launched the 100 pounds of Cans and decoy anchors into the weeds between the seawall and the dock. We went on to the landing and after recovering the boat, went on to the trailer. Whit asked me how I intended to get the birds from a public place like that. I asked Whit's wife, Wanda, to put on some nice, uppity looking clothes and get her biggest purse. She drove down to the Marina and strolled around looking over the fishing boats and what ever else a rich lady would look at. Eased over to the ducks, cut the anchors loose and piled them in her big oversized purse. Got back in the car and came to the house. We dined on fat Canvasback that night. Plan B was a success.