Stolen Hunt

Years ago I read a book entitled "Last Casts and Stolen Hunts".  It was an OK book.

Didn't really think on the title too much until a few years later when I stole a hunt.  Kelly Murphy and I were on a 10 day hunt up in Lowland on the Pamlico Sound.  On certain days of the week we were allowed to hunt in the state Gameland Impoundments for puddleducks.  The rest of the time we hunted out on the open water.

One day in particular we were heading out to shoot Scoters, right at the mouth of the Pamlico River, where it opens up into the Sound.  If you aren't familiar with that area, the River runs Southeast into the Sound.  The last several miles of the River are a really straight line, NW-SE.  So when the wind comes up Northwest, combine that with the natural flow of the current in the River and it gets pretty nasty, pretty quick.

So anyhow, that day the forecast was for SW winds 8-10 knots, turning W mid-morning then eventually NW in early afternoon, and building to 20-25.  I knew before we headed out that the Scoter would move between 0730 and 1030, so we would safely be off the water before that wind turned and came up strong.  No problem.

Well, the wind was almost West by the time we got on the water, but NOAA still didn't call for the big change until early afternoon.  So I thought we'd be OK, but I knew to keep an eye on the weather.  The Scoters cooperated pretty well.  We had a fine shoot that lasted about 2 hours until we had our limit.  We were just starting to bag up our guns and close up the gunning boxes when I noticed the decoys turning a little farther to the NW.  I told Kelly we should get our rig in and get out of there as quickly as we could because the weather was changing a little sooner than the weatherman had called for.

By the time we gathered up our 25 decoys we had waves breaking over the bow of my Herter's Model Yukon.  We headed for Oyster Creek, keeping the boat quartering into the 3-4 foot waves.  Only took 10 minutes to make the lee of Cedar Island and then we were in a lot calmer water for the rest of the ride into the landing.

By the time we got to the landing, probably 40 minutes from when we fired our last shot, the wind was up to 30 knots and building.  I was very happy to be standing beside the boat ramp and not out there fighting that mess.

We shot well that morning and Cain worked well so we had made good time on our hunt.  We've picked up enough decoys to be fast and efficient at that as well.  Good thing.  The way the weather changed, even 5 minutes later and we could have been in a real mess.

The title of that book came back to me then, and I told Kelly we had just stolen a hunt.