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.

A Little Luck

Several year s ago, we had a very strong cold front move in on coastal NC right at the end of the season.  Morris Whitfiled and I were up in Lowland, finishing up the season.  Our old friend Dr Phil Crutchfield was along with us, bird watching, while we hunted.  So, anyhow, we went out the first morning of the advancing cold front to see what new birds had arrived with the bad weather.  We hunted our regular old blind, #74 out on Pamlico Point.  The shooting had been poor the few previous days, but the cold weather brought a ton of birds.  Bluebills, Canvasbacks, by the thousands.  We saw more puddleducks out on the sound than we had in our lives.  Pintails, Wigeon, Gadwall.  Saw one huge mixed flock of Mallards and Black Ducks.  It was more like my old days of gunning in the Mississippi Flyway, to see a flock like that.

We had a wonderful shoot.  But the cold weather took it's toll on us.  Whit and I were both cold, but Crutchfield, uncharacteristically, got very quiet.  I recognized his behavior as hypothermia, so we got off the water as quick as we could and got him back to the trailer to warm up.  He had been wounded in action during the Korean War.  While recovering from his wounds in a VA hospital he had contracted polio.  It seriously damaged one of his legs.  He had limped through life, making the best of it and I never really heard him complain.  When we got back to the trailer, he was complaining a little.  Whit was concerned and we immediately turned two, getting him warmed up.  All the heaters on, the oven door propped open, all the surface burners on, warming the old trailer as quickly as we could.  We started undressing Crutchfield to make him more comfortable and so that he could walk around some.  When Whit pulled off  Phil's waders and removed his socks to check his feet, particularly the bad leg, it was pretty sad.  His left leg was black from the knee down.

Phil had fought the bad leg all his life, and seemed to remain pretty calm.  We ran a hot bath for him, prepared a hot meal and he seemed very comfortable.  But the black leg concerned me.  I wanted to take him to the nearest hospital and have them take care of him.  He refused.  Said it wasn't the first time that he had overdone it, and that by morning, he would be OK.  Well, the next morning, he was a lot better.  Well enough, he said, that he could drive himself home.  So Whit and I went hunting.

We had to warm up the hydraulics on Whit's boat with a torch, to get them thawed out, but the boat started pretty easily and we thought everything would be OK.  We took the battery out of my Jeep and loaded it in the boat as a back up.  Launched and headed out to the blind.  12 degrees, with a wind chill of -5.  Not much of a crowd at the ramp.  One other boat trailer was there ahead of us, and no others came while we were launching and heading out to the blind.  Morris, of course, was excited.  He told me that he knew for a fact that the Game Wardens had a safety rule that prohibited them from launching their boats when the weather was that cold.  So, of course, he had plans on killing a zillion ducks.

We didn't get in the blind till after shooting time and birds were moving, but nothing like the day before.  We killed 2 drake Gadwall and 2 Black Ducks in about 3 hours.  We continued to start the boat every 15 minutes to make sure it was OK.  We were warm enough and everything seemed alright, except for the lack of ducks.  We thought on it and decided that the migration we had the day before must have just continued through the afternoon and night and all the ducks were long gone.  Disappointed, to say the least.

Whit's old frostbitten index finger started bothering him, so we packed up and headed in.  Didn't make it too far.  Went in through the Mouse Harbor Ditch and made it to about the head of Prong Creek when the hydraulic system on the outboard motor threw craps.  The motor was tilting itself up and we couldn't keep it down in the water to run the boat.  After washing ashore, we found a bleed off  screw, but it was frozen and we didn't have the tools to back it out.

Huh, bad predicament.  We got out the little air horn and flare gun from the emergency equipment can and got ready to signal any boats that we might see.  Both of us remembering that we had only seen the single trailer at the ramp.  But some of the locals continue to hunt, fish, and poach all Winter, so we thought we had a slight chance of seeing someone.  We knew we could get out on the shore and hike towards civilization.  But there was deep water that would prevent us from being able to make it all the way in to safety.  So we decided to stay with the boat and keep our frozen fingers crossed.

About an hour later, we heard a boat running.  Coming through the Mouse Harbor Ditch and really no where for it to go except to pass by us.  We had drifted a couple hundred yards from the channel, but could still see out into Oyster Creek where the boat was heading. When it came out in the open and we could clearly see it, Whit started waving an orange life jacket and sounding the horn.  No change of course by the speeding boat.  Whit said to shoot the flare, so I launched our last ditch effort.  I made a good shot.  Almost too good.  The boat was 250 yards from us and my flare actually hit the outside of the hull of the boat, near the bow.  The boat immediately slowed, Whit kept signalling and I started loading another flare.  I heard the boat crank up and looked up to see it heading towards us.

The guys in the boat were a little upset about my marksmanship.  But there was no damage to their boat. They threw us a tow line and pulled us back to the landing.  They were in fact the only other boat that had launched.  We got pretty lucky.

No, we got real lucky.

Hunting with McGee

October of 2017, I finally accepted my old partner's invitation to come hunt with him up in Minnesota.  I am so glad I did.  To me, it was just like the old days.  Almost like we hadn't been apart for 20 years.  I guess some partnerships are forever.  He has a really nice set up on a lake about 30 minutes from his house.  A great location where he has his blind.  This year the wild rice was very thick.  He said it was about the heaviest that he has seen it.  Sort of cut down on our open water, for the decoys, and for birds to work, but it was still excellent.  We shot more Mallards than anything else, which was fine by me.  Killed some monstrous Canada Geese.  Only shot a very few divers, almost all puddleducks, which of course is a great change for me.

I know you all are wondering.  Yes.  He still has the green Halloween horns that he refers to as duck calls.  Calls louder and more often than ever, but I can't argue too much with the results.

Chincoteague Island Brant

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.

1stLt Tully

A short life, but a merry one.

The first time I ever saw Tully was a couple days after my wife and son had picked him up from the breeder.  I had been in Argentina when he was due to be brought home.  He had an eyelid pretty much torn off and a toenail torn out by the roots.  Apparently he didn't care for being alone in a kennel.  He never spent a night in my kennel after that.  What a burden to the family that was, a big, rough, outdoor dog living in the house.  A nuisance at times, but it led to an even closer attachment to him than my other dogs.  At times, I felt Tully was not completely sane.  Making the same mistake over and over again, and somehow expecting a different outcome?  But, other times, he seemed to be telepathically connected to me.  Anticipating my every move.  Every second of his life he was ready to do whatever I did.  With me step for step for almost 9 years.  Slept either on my bed or the floor beside my bed.  Laid on the floor outside my bathroom when I was in there.  With me every step.  When I went to work it was a terrible separation period for him.  Heaven forbid that I would go off for a week long deer hunt, or guided duck hunt where he couldn't go along.  It was amazing, and not always in a good way.  Sometimes everybody needs a little space.  Tully didn't though.  He wanted, no, needed my company.  Big and strong and fearless, but yet he needed me to be close by for reassurance.

As far as his retrieving skills, he was top notch.  Very fast in the water.  Tremendous marking ability.  Maybe a bit antsy in the blind, waiting for the next shot, but very good at what he did.  First dog I have ever had that never lost a duck.  How many hunters can say they went 9 years without losing a single crippled duck? Only those of us lucky enough to have been in the blind with Tully.

He lived all his life at a high rate of speed.  Always excited, always ready for anything and everything.  I feared that he would burn out and die young, just due to the way he sped through life.  Injuries accumulated over the years.  So he limped throughout the off season, but never missed a hunting day.  Suddenly, in October of last year he became ill.  Numerous trips to the Vet revealed that he had a periodontal  disease referred to as CUPS.  A very serious, life threatening disease.  The doctors did the best they could.  He lived through the hunting season.  But during a surgical procedure to remove some more infected teeth, the Vet found that the disease had spread into the bone.  He came home to be with me for a little while longer, and actually seemed to be doing pretty well, despite the pain.  Suddenly, a couple nights ago he became violently ill and that was the end.

No way, no how, could I begin to explain the current void in my life.  Maybe I needed him more than he needed me.  He was smart enough to realize it, so he devoted his life to keeping me company. Now he's gone, and I am alone for the first time in nearly 9 years that he looked over me.  I truly don't know what to do.  Tully boy, I'll never get over you.

Too Cold

We went to Maine in January 2015 for a seaduck hunt.  Unfortunately they had record cold temperatures and gale force winds while we were there.  Ruined the hunt.  The guide wasn't very well prepared for the extremely cold, windy conditions, but blamed the lack of shooting on it being too cold for ducks to fly.  That is a new one on me.

We got out to hunt for about three hours for two days.  One day on a very small island and the other day on a rock ledge.  Of course the 11 foot range of tide there makes the ledges completely submerged on high tide and there is some risk involved when the temperature is -12 and the wind chill is -44.  We toughed it out and tried to get some shooting but it just didn't happen.  We killed 9 Eiders total in the two mornings we hunted.  Pretty sad.

Very expensive trip.  Since I plan on retiring this year, that is probably the last guided hunt I'll ever be able to take.  Makes it even more disappointing.

Whatever.  We all did our best and toughed it out in colder temperatures than most people will ever hunt in.  But, seeing how tough we were was not the reason for the trip.  I already knew I was tough.

Return to Chincoteague Island

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 :-)