Kelly Murphy and I planned on returning to Chincoteague Island for a rematch with the Brant. Didn't happen. Kelly tore up her knee at work, the evening before our leave started. So I had to regroup. Luckily, Mike was able to get off work and go with me. We went with a new guide this time, Andy Linton. His pitch was pretty good, sounded knowledgeable enough, and eager enough, to take us on a good hunt. He did OK. His blinds were good, his decoy spread was OK, his blind locations were OK. BUT, the naked truth about duck hunting was enough to overpower whatever might have been right. You need weather!
Some times you can go out in the middle of the day, on a bluebird day and still shoot a limit of ducks. But the nasty weather will win out. Whether it is wind, snow, rain, or whatever else you can have to make you miserable, it usually makes for a better duck day.
Mike and I had one total bluebird day, with 5 mph wind. One day of morning fog then sunny and hardly any wind. The other day, was miserable. Rained steady, all day long. Breezy and cold and a real bitch to be out in. Guess which day was our best?
Not that we had a world of shooting by any means, but we each killed some Canada Geese, we each killed some Brant (as you can see in the flick, Mike's was weighted down with bands :-) and Mike was able to kill a couple species that he had never gotten before. Actually they were his last two he needed to fill his list of all the normal puddleducks and divers in North America. So all in all, he had a big trip. I enjoyed myself as well, even though I was disappointed to see the Brant numbers were down. We've heard since then that the Brant season will probably be closed for a few years until they can get a couple good nesting years and get the population stabilized again.
For anyone who was worried about it - The Island Creamery is still going strong :-)
