Our NC duck season ended a little abruptly, when I tore up my boat trailer on the rough road to the Rhodes Point blind. Mike brought to my attention, that in Virginia the Brant season stayed open a couple days after the regular duck season closed. I called some guides up there, one wasn't too encouraging, but the other (whom I hadn't hunted with before) said that he could put us on Brant. Even offered a money back guarantee if we didn't get any shooting. So I reserved the last two days of the season.
Typically, the weather forecast turned sour for those days, but we headed on up there anyhow. As we got settled in to our motel, the weather followed the forecast and got pretty rough. Winds NNW at 15-25, gusts to 35, and snow. It looked to be a real hoot. We saw the guide's boat at the landing near our motel. Good sized Carolina skiff, with some really nice looking Brant decoys. Turned out the decoys were Tanglefree brand and they looked great on the water.
Capt Pete, our guide, showed up the next morning and had us sign some paperwork. During the course of our conversation, the guarantee of getting shooting turned in to a guarantee of seeing Brant. Whatever. We were there and it was too late to cancel. So we headed out into the dark, with somewhat diminished expectations.
He put us in a pretty run down blind. The big ice/snow storm a couple weeks before had stripped 90% of the brush off the blind. After daylight, we could see that nearly all the blinds in the area were in similar shape. He put out the decoys and told us that he would be back to pick up our birds and service the decoys. Little did we know just what an ordeal "servicing" the decoys would be.
When the tide came in, it brought tons of sea lettuce with it. It tangles on the decoy cords, and could literally wash a decoy 100 yards away in just a couple minutes. I would rig my decoys differently but Capt Pete just continued to come back, throw fresh decoys in front of the blind, then drop off down wind and gather up the strays. Unfortunately when the first big flock of Brant moved, we had about half our spread in a small bunch about 100 yards down from the blind. Of course, the Brant decoyed there, out of gun range. It was a huge flock, several hundred birds. Beautiful to watch, but disappointing. Finally a pair of Brant broke from the big flock and made a good pass in front of the blind. Perfect shot.
Capt Pete moved us from blind to blind, even once to an exposed sandbar nearby the feeding Brant. We came close, but didn't get any more shooting. Not skunked, but a little disappointed.
The next morning it was a lot colder, wind was dying some, and the snow was gone, so we headed out again. Pretty much a repeat of the previous day, except no shooting. Brant were moving by the thousands, following the ebbing tide, but we just couldn't coax the huge flocks into our decoys. Finally, about noon, a flock of four Brant broke off a big flock and came at us over the land in behind the blind, then over a marsh. We were half afraid to shoot for fear of not being able to retrieve the birds, but at the last second they turned and came right over the blind from behind.
Trying to get turned to shoot behind us was difficult on me. My foot slipped off a floorboard in the blind and I fell. Mike doubled and I managed to get off a shot and killed one as they were going away. Of all the things that could go wrong... That was it for the day.
I was quite impressed with Capt Pete. He really knew the feeding habits of the Brant, and their flight paths to and from their feeding grounds. For such a late hunt, after two straight months of gunning pressure, I think he did a great job of getting us some shooting. I certainly hope to gun with him again during a more favorable part of the season.
Yes, for anyone who was wondering, the Island Creamery is still going strong.
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