The Float Trip

My old friend, Morris Whitfield, lived in Fayetteville, NC.  The Cape Fear River runs through town and Morris loved to float the river for Wood Ducks.  Unfortunately, the time of year when the Wood Duck population was at it's peak, the hunting season wasn't open for most of his life.  15-20 years ago, when the waterfowl population was very high, our NC season was lengthened, with a nice chunk of it being added in November.  Which, according to Morris, was the best Wood Duck period.  He was very pleased with the turn of events.  Immediately, he invited me over.

Well, during that time frame, the limit on Wood Ducks was reduced by a couple birds.  Morris claimed the Wood Duck Limit had been five for his entire life, and he was really crushed by the reduced limit.  I shot a lot of Woodies in the 70's and 80's.  Had a really great little marsh, that was full of Wood Ducks every year, and never too much hunting pressure.  But, I enjoyed the variety of ducks we had here in NC, and I really preferred to shoot decoying birds, so my Wood Duck hunting was always just a fallback option.

Anyhow, Morris really wanted me to come with him on a float trip.  He had an old Skeeter bass boat, that he used for floating the Cape Fear.  Small, but plenty of room, easy to handle, low profile, virtually perfect for sneaking up on ducks.  He had an outboard motor on the boat, for getting back to the ramp, after he floated the river, so it was an easy hunt. So, I agreed to try it with him for a long weekend. 

The first morning, we launched right at daylight, at a ramp just outside of town.  He had fresh Red Oak trimmings covering the Skeeter and it really looked good.  I sat up front to start the gunning.  He cranked the motor and ran a little way from the ramp, then pulled up the outboard and got out a paddle.  The current of the river pulled us along at an ideal speed, and he just used the paddle to steer us.  So, off we floated, and floated, and floated, and floated.  Morris was beside himself.  Not a sign of a duck.  Conditions were perfect, it was the first day of the November season, so the river hadn't been hunted.  Nobody was ahead of us, so where were the Wood Ducks?

Finally, we saw a pair, swimming towards us along a long stretch of a muddy, sandy shoreline.  No cover to help us make the sneak.  I got as low as I could in the front of the boat and Morris just had the tip of his paddle in the water to steer us.  Well, with both of us staying really low in the boat, neither of us had a good view of the ducks.  As we neared the shoreline I raised my head just a little and saw that we had missed our intercept point by about 50 yards.  I sat up to shoot and knocked down the drake, on an incredibly long long shot.

Morris was really upset then.  I guess I should had tried to guide him a little better, but I got the drake and wouldn't have shot the hen anyway, even if we had gotten closer.  I told him to beach the boat and we would change places.  He declined and said that he had killed a million ducks this way and wanted me to enjoy the shoot.  So we headed on down the river.  Only went about 200 yards and came to a sharp bend in the river.  We were still very close to where I had shot the first duck, so neither of us was really expecting to see anything until we got farther down the river.  But, the ducks felt differently about it.  In 30 seconds of our slow floating we were in the center of a flock of probably 50 Wood Ducks.  Truly  something I had never seen before.  They seemed curious about the boat, but not scared or spooked.  With my head bent forward very close to the gunwale, I was peeking out eye to eye with a drake that was within 12 inches of me.  Absolutely amazing.  That red eye staring right at me from a foot away.

Morris sat upright and asked if I was going to shoot.  All Hell broke loose then.  When the smoke cleared we had our limit of Wood Ducks floating around the boat. 

Still not my favorite way of hunting, but that morning was surely a trip to remember.  The rest of the weekend was spoiled by a terrible rainstorm that flooded the Cape Fear out of it's banks and made it unsafe to launch the boat.  So, all in all, the furious two second shoot was fun, but then two hunting days were lost, waiting to see if the dams would be raised or lowered to get the river back under control. It didn't happen.  I never went back over to try the hunting again.  But I'm glad I tried it with Morris that one time.