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.