The 'Pit' Blind

One day while hunting down in Argentina, I hunted ducks from a pit blind. Well sort of a pit blind. The terrible drought was making it tough to find a place to duck hunt. The huge marsh/lake/flooded field area where we had been hunting for a couple years was drying up fast. The bird boys were having to build new blinds each day to follow the receding water.

The senior bird boy and guide, Luis, always makes a strong effort to put me in a good shooting location. So, he really got creative one day. He went well out into the middle of what was left of the lake and found an exposed sand bar. It had been under water up until just a couple days before and had absolutely no cover on it. He dug a small pit and put about half of a plastic barrel down in the hole. You could sit upright on the sand and have your feet down in the 'pit'. He put a plastic tarp down to sit on and cut and carried brush from the shore. He planted all the cut brush around the shooting area and made a very effective blind. Well, the day I hunted it the barrel kept floating up and being a big nuisance, but he told me that within a couple days the water had gone down more and there was no water left to float the barrel. So maybe the next hunting party used it with a little more ease. But it was still a deadly blind.

The morning I used it, the bird boy that was assigned to me was the son of my old Argentinian friend Jorge. He was in his first year of working as a bird boy and was pretty nervous. Down in Argentina there are so many ducks that you don't really need much skill to hunt successfully. So the guides and bird boys don't necessarily know all that much about decoying birds. They just go to a spot where the birds are using and let the shear numbers of ducks dictate the success of the hunt. My bird boy, Martin, was a prime example of that. We waded out to the little island and he simply walked off to one side and threw a few decoys out in a big wad. Then he started to come back to the blind and set up the caller and give me my shells. I told him no, it wasn't going to work like that. I grounded my gear and we went out into the decoys and I showed him how to set up. I can't speak Spanish and he can't speak English, but I was able to explain what we needed to do. I explained to him about the wind and how the ducks would approach the blind. I gestured that we didn't want the rising sun to always be in my eyes. We picked up the mess that he had thrown out and went to the opposite side of the little island and set a simple J-pattern. I stuck my Mojo decoy right in the center of the pocket and we returned to the "pit" to start the hunt. The other hunters had been banging away for close to half an hour before we got ready. I guess the ducks had all seen us walking around and me gesturing and pointing so nothing came around for the first 30 minutes or so. I could tell Martin was getting even more nervous. I told him to relax and we'd get our birds. Once everything had settled down the ducks came to us real well. Pochards, Wigeon and Speckled Teal fly in flocks but other than that most all the birds down there fly in pairs or just singles. Makes for a really relaxed shoot if that is what you want.

I shot a few Rosy Bills and Wigeon, but the vast majority of my bag that day was Pintails. Both Yellow Billed and White Cheeked came to us all morning long. They work the decoys just like our Northern Pintails do here in the States, except with only about half the wariness, so it was a great shoot. The little 'pit' blind hadn't worked all that well, but it was a great shooting location. With the bugs ironed out I imagine it was the best location Rancho Salvaje had to hunt that year.

That evening Luis came to me and asked me to come outside. When I went out to see what he wanted, Martin was there and he had a cell phone in his hand. He gestured for me to answer the phone and it was his father Jorge. Jorge can't speak a lot of English but he thanked be over and over again for being patient with his son and taking the time to teach him how to set out the decoys properly. I love teaching new hunters here or there so I told him it was no problem. I told him how hard his son had worked to retrieve all 50 of my birds and that we had a great time hunting together that morning. It worked out well all around.

Permit Hunt

Several years ago here in NC, the Gamelands impoundments stopped being open to the public. You had to apply for permits that were awarded on a draw-names-out-of-a-hat system that the WRC set up. With the 'Brannen Luck' working for me, I rarely get drawn. But one time Whit and I got drawn for a hunt at Spring Creek.

I went up the afternoon before our hunt and scouted the impoundment. Walked up on a beautiful, big buck and saw my first ever Fulvous Tree Ducks. It snowed pretty hard while I was scouting and a lot of ducks were piling into the marsh. Literally thousands of Wigeon were crowded into that small impoundment. I was pretty excited about our chances.

Whit and I discussed what I had seen and we decided that there were so many wigeon around that we couldn't hardly go wrong on them, no matter where we set up. So we decided to hunt in the area of the marsh where I had seen the Fulvous ducks. We got up the next morning and the weather had changed for the worse. Warmed up and the sky completely cleared. The wind was fairly brisk, but from exactly the wrong direction for the spot we had chosen to hunt.

We were disappointed and pretty much confused on what to do. We weren't the most confused guys on the marsh though. One other hunter was there. He was supposed to meet up with a friend who knew the area, but the friend had cancelled. The guy asked us a few questions about the marsh and we filled him in. He also asked about the limits on ducks, particularly on Redheads. When he walked away we had a little chuckle. I doubt a Redhead had ever flown within 20 miles of that marsh. Whatever.

We talked it over and decided it was worth it to hunt a bad wind, and a bright sun in our face to try for the Fulvous ducks. I had never killed one and Whit had only gotten one. So we set up and hoped for the best. We had a great shoot. Never saw the tree ducks that we had hoped for, but Wigeon were on us all morning. We took turns shooting only drakes and had a fantastic time. Got our limit by about 0900. When we finished, Whit waded our guns and shell bags over to the dike while I started picking up decoys. I was surprised to hear Whit talking to someone and turned to see a Game Warden checking our gear and ducks. I had no clue that a Warden was any place close to us, but he had snuck in and watched us all morning. I was always legal, but Whit rarely was, so it was good that we had behaved that morning, particularly with all the ducks we saw.

When we were packing our gear into the car the Game Warden walked up again and we talked for a couple minutes. I asked if anyone else was hunting the impoundment, we had heard a little shooting, but couldn't tell for sure how far away it was. The Warden told us that one other man had been hunting there that morning, just walking around the dike with his retriever and hoping to have duck fly by. Said he only got one bird; a Redhead. I guess you never know.

A Dream Comes True

When I was pretty young, we were driving up to Indian Lake to hunt. Right about where we passed by Kiser Lake we saw a nice sized flock of Snow and Blue Geese. They were beautiful. Flying fairly low and not going too fast. We stopped the car and watched, and listened to them pass. It was fantastic. They were the first ones I had ever seen. I hunted Indian Lake for several years and never saw any. Dad saw a migration of Snows one time and a friend of ours actually killed a pair out of a little flock of 6 that decoyed to him out in the Reed Patch blind.

I never saw another Snow Goose until I was hunting up in Maryland. Most days I just saw thousands of Canada Geese, but every now and then I'd see a flock of Snows. One day Winston Chance took me hunting on his family's property down near Queen Anne. They had a large decoy spread of Snow Goose decoys, and a couple hundred Snows spent the entire afternoon on a pond just across the road, but we didn't have any action.

Toward the end of my first season I got a shot at a single Snow Goose and I killed it. The following year I killed another single. But not any real Snow Goose shooting like I had read about. In the mid-80's we had a single Snow Goose fly by our blind on the Pamlico River and I killed it. A couple years later Whit killed a Blue out of #74 and another in a Swan field over in Hyde County. So we were pecking away at them, but not really Snow Goose hunting.

Then in 1999 (I think) I got invited to Saskatchewan by an old friend of my Father. About a half hour into our second morning I finally got the Snow Goose shooting I had dreamed of ever since that Kiser Lake flock 30 some years before.

We had some really great Snow, Blue, and Ross' Goose shoots in Saskatchewan. Loved every minute of it. I have killed one more Snow here in NC since then. Maybe I'll get to shoot them again someday, sure hope to have that dream come true again.

Two Men Walking

I'm not afraid of the dark. Well, I'm a little afraid of the dark. Sometimes you see things that you can't quite explain. Sometimes you see things that appear to be a little strange. Then in the daylight, they are even more strange. Like the tree stump that looks just like a nice deer in the half-light of dawn. Then when the sun comes up, the stump has moved on.

The very first morning that McGee and I hunted in Mouse Harbor we saw something that we weren't quite sure what it was. We were a little bit lost and confused that morning in the dark, and we thought we saw 2 men walking along the far shore. One of them appeared to be carrying a decoy bag, so we assumed that it was other hunters. When it got light, we could clearly see it was a few miles to the nearest land (Sound Point)in that direction. So, being the smarter one of the two, I decided that we had seen ghosts or some sort of strange apparition. That was the logical answer to me.

From that time on, McGee and I referred to that point of land as "Two Men Walking". I did not want to anger the "hant" we had seen that morning in the dark. I did not want those two "men" to come after me. So McGee and I decided that we would hunt on our side of Mouse Harbor and they would, hopefully, stay on their side.

Some time later, I was hunting with Morris Whitfield and I referred to Sound Point as "Two Men Walking". Whit was immediately intrigued with that. He asked me if I had researched the area, and was that an old 'Indian Name' for Sound Point? I told him no. I told him that I had actually seen two hunters walking out to the point one morning in the dark. He told me that was impossible. It was a few miles away and I couldn't have seen anybody that far away in broad daylight, much less in the dark. I told him not to talk so loud when he was discussing that situation. I told him I feared that I had seen a couple of ghosts, probably the poor, ever-wandering souls of a couple of drowned duck hunters. Then I told him I didn't want to talk about it any more.

That night, back at the trailer, he questioned me some more. Being safely back at the camp, I spoke a little more openly about what we had seen. Morris listened intently and decided that we would go out real early the next morning, and perhaps see the ghosts again. I wasn't really comfortable with that, but being a U. S. Marine I couldn't let anyone see my fear.

So the next morning we went out real early. Sure enough I could see the two ghost hunters walking out the point. Morris said he tried real hard, but he couldn't see them. He said when it got light we would go investigate. I decided it was time to face my fears and told him I was ready to go over there and see, once and for all.

Soon as it was good daylight we got in the boat and motored across Mouse Harbor. Remember what I said a little while ago, that some things are even more strange when you finally see them in the daylight. Well, the two men who had walked out the point in the dark were gone. But they had left a sign of their passing. They had carefully carved out several dozen long wooden poles and stuck them in the sand. To me it was a clear sign that something supernatural had occurred out there in the dark of night. Something you try to forget, but the memory lingers on.

The sign of the "Two Men Walking" was there for years, until a hurricane wiped it from the face of the earth. I will always be glad I took that picture. Without photographic evidence I may have started to doubt myself. I wonder if the lost souls of those poor, drowned, duck hunters will ever find peace. I wonder if I will ever see them again. I wonder if someday Mike McGee and I will be the "Two Men Walking".

Israel's Gut

In the far back, southeastern part of Jim's Creek there is a small bay called Israel's Gut. Don't ask me how it got the name. I think it belongs to Steve Ross, part of his father's estate. I know he owns at least part of it, and the Potter's used to own the rest. Whatever. It is a beautiful part of the creek. Big enough to attract divers, but small enough to get a good share of puddleduck action. Unless you get a wicked NW wind, the little bay is an easy hunt.

We never made a habit of sneaking in there when I was hunting. I think Whit used to a lot before we started hunting together, so he knew the area very well. He had shot a lot of Canvasbacks in there, when they had it full of corn. Anyhow, one year Steve told us any day, except Saturdays, we wanted to hunt it in January was fine, because he had used all his vacation and was going back to work. It was nice to have that option, but since the baiting had pretty much ended up in Jim's Creek, it certainly wasn't a hot-spot.

So one day we had a bad weather forecast, fairly warm and rainy. Almost thunderstorm rainy conditions. We didn't want to get caught out on Mouse Harbor in weather like that so we decided to give Israel's Gut a try. Whit told me a story of a similar day he had spent hunting there in the rain and they had shot a lot of birds between the rain squalls, so it was at least something to try. We just hacked our way into some wax-myrtle bushes and put a small piece of camo burlap in front of us and we were covered up just fine. Well, the weatherman had missed the forecast by a mile. The wind came up a little after daylight and blew all the rain out to sea. It was cold and windy, but pretty much a blue sky. The ducks moved (but not by us) for the first hour or so after daylight, then fizzled out. We saw a couple Cans and really nothing else till about 1000. Then we started seeing a few little bunches of divers. First pass we killed a few and they turned out to be Ringnecks. Every few years a flight of Ringnecks comes to Pamlico Point, but it may have been the first I had ever killed up there. So that was fine by us. Next pass we shot Bluebills, which was OK too. Next pass we killed a pair of Bills and a pair of Ringnecks, pretty neat. I have seen that a few times since and maybe I had seen it before, but I thought it was cool to try to identify one from the other when they were coming into the decoys. Wasn't happening.

Out of nowhere a pair of Wood Ducks came screaming by, up high in the wind. Strange to me to see Woodies flying high like that out over a salt water bay, but I went ahead and killed the drake. He was so high and flying so fast (and he wasn't stone dead) that he fell 2 mosquito ditches away from us, in heavy juncas grass. I figured him for a lost bird. More of a retrieve than I even wanted to send Hoss on. Whit decided his dog Patty had seen the bird fall and had a mark on it. I doubted it, but he put her in the boat and they cruised 100 yards or so down the shore and Patty went looking for the bird. She couldn't find it, but wouldn't give up. Whit got tired of calling her and came on back to hunt some more. Pretty soon he started worrying about Patty, she should have come back by then. So we went to look for her. Sure enough she was right where he had put her out of the boat, sitting there holding that Wood Duck.

Not all that exciting of a day, but it was the first and only time I ever hunted in the little bay with the strange name, so I remember it well. I remember the smug look on Patty's face too.

Spring Creek in the Spring

Once upon a time, when Phil Crutchfield had his Collector's Permit, we had a great Teal shoot the first week of April. The Museum wanted as many Blue Wing Teal drakes as they could get. They had some big trade planned with some other state, so we were given the green light to 'collect' as many as we could.

The Spring Creek Impoundment had plenty of Teal so we just hunted there, rather than go to the trouble to go out to Goose Creek. We (Whit) was all about an easy hunt. We didn't even go down the dike as far as the first cross ditch. We just got away from the end with all the downed trees and snags and found a reasonably open little hole to throw the decoys in.

My Dad and Phil just went hiking around the impoundment and left Whit and I to do the collecting. Saturday we saw almost no Teal. Friday afternoon their were a million in there, but they went elsewhere on Saturday morning. So we had to settle for Gadwall and Wigeon, a dark and lonely job,as Morris always put it. Killed a dozen of each. But I think we only got 3 Teal the whole morning.

Sunday morning was a whole different story. I think all we killed was Teal, and several of them were fully plumed Blue Wing drakes, so Phil was elated. One pair of Teal had passed us and Whit got on them first. With a little laugh, he killed the drake, which was on my side. I shot the hen and we sent Hoss and Patty out to retrieve. When Hoss returned, Whit took the duck and looked it over for a minute then threw it in the pile. I never even looked at it until we finished up and went back to the trailer.

When I was going over all the birds I saw the one hen was different. Phil confirmed it was a Cinnamon Teal. Turned out to be the first and only specimen ever taken in North Carolina. Phil published an article in a bird watchers magazine about me killing the Cinnamon Teal. I was a little concerned because he had included the date of the hunt (early April) but I guess the Game Wardens don't read that magazine.

Good Shells and Tight Chokes

Over the years I've made some long shots. I've made the longest shots I've ever seen. I've made the longest shots that any of my hunting partners have ever seen. I take some of the credit, but mostly it has been proper selection of shells and choke.

About a million years ago I read old Stoegers Catalogs and a few sporting magazines and got interested in the ballistics of shotgun shells. I have an old book "The Complete Encyclopedia of Hunting" that I read back then and used to help hand load my first shotgun shells. Dennis Chaney and I used some really primitive means to arrive at our end. For example: using a rat-tail file to open up the powder and shot holes in a MEC reloader bar and catching the metal filings and weighing them and recording the data. Then we would go pattern the shells we loaded and look for a killing pattern. Then back to the filing. Over and over until the pattern was blown. Then, start all over again and stop just short of where we had blown the pattern. First with the amount of powder, then the amount of shot. Of course all the while we kept within the 'safe limits' of a reloading manual that my Father had. When we were finished we knew we had the maximum load that we could shoot through our 870's and have a perfect pattern. Years after that I got the opportunity to chronograph the loads and they were screamers by the standards of the day. 1300 fps with 1 3/8 ounces of #5 lead shot. For most ducks it was all I ever needed. We also developed a load for #6's and a load for #4's. So then we were covered from Teal Season till the late season Mallards and Blacks. Other than some truly hand-loaded #4 Buck that Dad fixed up for geese, I always shot factory 3" #2's on geese. I preferred the
1 3/8 ounce load, but the 1 5/8 ounce load was easier to find. The heavy 1 7/8 ounce load was just too slow for the way I was accustomed to shooting.

I shot those old loads until steel shot became mandatory. From the beginning I looked for steel shells that had good velocity. My first favorite was the Winchester Supreme. #3's for Bluebills and #2's for big ducks. After a while I switched over to Kent Fasteel because of the price. That is what I still shoot on a regular basis. If I go on a high-$ guided hunt I generally shoot Heavy Shot. It is probably the killingest shotgun shell I have ever used. But expensive to buy and expensive to replace choke tubes that wear out ahead of schedule.

I have shot a Full choke ever since I got my 870, 40 years ago. I will continue to shoot a Full choke as long as I hunt ducks. I like having the little extra pattern density out at long yardage. The steel shot era took some getting adjusted to. When steel shot first came along, all the "experts" said to shoot an open choke. Improved Cylinder or at least Modified. They told all these stories about steel shot not "flowing" through the choke like lead shot and too tight of choke would ruin your pattern. In my own mind I am convinced they talked that trash to keep people from ruining Full choked barrels on their favorite guns, and turning on the shell industry.

I shot steel for about 15 years in my 870. It still measures .685. My 870 barrel is strong. I think all vintage Remington barrels could handle steel shot just fine. When the arthritis in my elbow forced me to start using my Benelli, I started eating choke tubes. I admit, I have never bought the top of the line, mega-$ chokes tubes, but I didn't buy el-cheapo's either. I think in particular, Heavy Shot shells really work on a choke tube. I don't shoot a lot of that stuff, but since it hit the market, I wear out choke tubes faster. But I'm sticking with a Full choke.

I recently read 2 really good articles about some extensive research that was conducted to explore the benefits of a 'short shot string'. I know the concept originated with John Olin, and the shells that we shoot in this country all have a decently short shot string. That is when they are fired through a barrel with a good quality choke. I do concede that these 'wad-stripper' choke tubes they are making these days do seem to help keep a nice pattern. But the bottom line of the research that I mentioned was that a Modified choke made a better killing pattern.

I tend to disagree. I can hold my own in mathematics and physics. So I set up some equations of my own to take the aforementioned test results to a little higher level. I used ballistic data straight from the shell manufacturers. I used some equations I found on the Internet to factor in the tangential effects of wind speed, wind direction, and the speed of the duck. I used accurate measurements (I dissected the Bluebill) to see how large of an area the 'killing zone' is. I used actual pattern density tests that my Dad and I conducted some years back. So I was not working with ball park figures on what a Full choke produces versus a Modified choke. I had the specific data.

Sure enough, you get a shorter shot string with a Modified choke. Just like the magazine articles said. But, now for the rest of the story. For an average sized Bluebill, flying at 45 mph at a range of 45 yards the difference in the length of the shot string between a Modified and Full choke is one side of the story. The increased pattern density of the Full choke is the other side. By my calculations, the number of pellets actually entering the killing zone of that Bluebill at the split second when you want to kill that bird is higher with the Full choke. Granted, there is less for room for error with the Full choke. But I have contended all my life that the reason hunters used a more open choke was not about "not wanting the meat all shot up" but rather to make up for slight shortcomings in their wingshooting ability.

So, you can safely shoot birds at 35 yards and smack them down good and hard with your Modified. You can sit there in the blind and be one of the guys. Or you can reach out and touch a duck that nobody else even thought about shooting at. Ever go off to a foreign country and sit down to your first meal with a group of total strangers and when your name is mentioned have another hunter set down his fork and say he had heard about your shooting from other total strangers?

Screw a Full choke tube in your gun and be that guy.

Night Hunts

I would never be so greedy that I would shoot at night. I have read about it for years, but it was a way of life when it was practiced. That's how the Market Hunters earned a living. Don't know that I fully agree with it even under those circumstances. But in the meantime, I don't really know of anybody shooting at night. Except for a couple times.

Down in Argentina, we shot geese in fields for about 3 hours in the morning. That was all the time that most of the hunters wanted to lay there on the cold ground. I asked if I could stay on after they were ready to pick up and got first one excuse then another from the outfitter, but the answer was always no. So for the rest of the day we shot upland game; perdiz and hares. Or shot doves and pigeons.

The goose shooting was great, but left us with a lot of time on our hands. So after a couple days the outfitter said he had found a pond where the geese were roosting and that we could shoot there in the 'evening'. I was all for it. Late that afternoon (about 1800) we headed out to a large pond. Around the bank it was 6 inches deep in goose feathers, so it looked promising. We put a few floater goose decoys in the pond and spread out in a semi-circle around the end of the pond that the outfitter said the geese would come from. We were standing in 6 foot high needle grass, so we were well hidden. We waited and waited. The sun went down and dusk started closing in on us. Just about the time I thought it was a bust, the first geese showed up. They came into view with their wings set, already gliding into the pond. In 10 minutes we had 135 geese down. It was unbelievable. I only shot at the male Magellan Geese, because they are mostly white and were easier to see and much easier to retrieve in that long grass.

The following year we tried the same thing again. The pond where we went that time had no cover around it at all. We sat down and leaned back against some little backrests right on the edge of the pond. Sticking out like sore thumbs, I was afraid it would flare the geese. I was wrong. That night it was truly dark before we saw the first flock. You had to shoot straight up over your head so you could silhouette the birds against the sky. Same result. 4 of us put down 110 in less than 10 minutes.

It was exciting. There are millions of geese in Argentina, so the birds we killed weren't even a drop in the ocean. To get to turn over a pickup truck full of geese to a poor farmer easily outweighs any feeling of being a poor sport and shooting a 'little late'.

Good Sports

Back a few years when Paul Gettys and his friends invited me to Saskatchewan with them, they really treated me good. Even though they normally sort of shared some responsibilities, that year they bent the rules a little so I could hunt all the time and didn't have to spend any of the time scouting. Not that I could have been all that productive out scouting, since I didn't know where I was most of the time, and didn't know any of the farmers. But it was really nice of those guys to let me hunt morning and evening.

They made sure I was set to get decent shooting wherever we hunted. One morning Paul had picked out a goose field that was a good ways from the area where we had been goose shooting. He said their were birds there in the evening, so we set up there the following morning. The field we were in was pretty much rectangular, with a big pond at one corner and a small pond on the opposite corner. We got some goose shooting, although not a lot. The good sportsmanship showed up when a Specklebelly came from the right side of the spread all the way across to where I was on the far left edge. None of them shot at it, let me kill my first ever Specklebelly. That same morning a lot of Mallards were moving back and forth between the two ponds. Not really coming to our decoys, but just skirting the far left edge of the decoys - my corner. When I had killed my duck limit, I volunteered to switch places with one of them. They said no, for me just to fire away. I killed 26 out of our 32 duck limit. That was true friendship and sportsmanship.

On a couple of things they snagged me, but it was out of humor, not selfishness. The first week we were there, Sand Hill Cranes were everywhere. But, those guys told me not to shoot one. Said they were a horrible looking bird and not fit to eat. So I let many of them pass by me. After about a week of hunting, Rich Kasunic asked me if I had killed a Crane yet and I told him no, that I wasn't going to bother with one. He said that I should kill one just to add to my 'big list'. So, I was all for it. Never saw another one for the rest of the trip. They told me later that they had all killed one, and that they were not a great prize, but that it was a shame I had gone all the way to Saskatchewan and not gotten one.

Another time they got me we were in a good goose field. They normally hunted in 2 pairs out in the middle of the decoy spread. If one pair or the other got the lion's share of the shooting, they would trade off every hour or so. Well, this one morning Paul and I were paired together and were getting the majority of the shooting so he told me that we would go switch with the other guys. They said no. I think it was just because they wanted me to have the shooting. But anyhow, as Paul and I were standing there trying to convince them to swap out, a flock of Ross' Geese came right to the decoys. They were only about 20 yards high, but they were doing that strange flipping over in flight. The entire flock was flipping over and over, it was crazy. When they got to about 35 yards Paul hollered "Shoot!" So I did. Missed clean. But the birds all straightened out and the four us killed the entire flock. 11 birds down, it was awesome. I asked Paul, why did he say to shoot when the birds were doing all that flipping around, and he said that firing a shot was the only way to get them to stop and start flying normally. Being the "new" man, I had been elected to be the one to give up that first shot. Didn't need it, really. There were only 11 birds in the flock.

All in all, those guys could not have treated me any better for that 2 week trip. True Sportsmen.