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.