Small Mistakes

It is hard to admit, with the incredible size of my ego, that even I have made a couple blunders in my duck hunting career.  Nothing earth shattering, not enough to group me with the multitude of Bozo's I've encountered out hunting, but ever so slight glitches.

Out Teal hunting one year when I was young, I came very close to running out of shells.  Came down to needing one more duck for our limit, and only having one shell left.  My partner hadn't been shooting so well, and I convinced him to let me have the last shell.  Passed up a couple tricky shots, but finally put down the last bird.  I haven't run out of shells since then.

Another time, when I was young, Dad went for beer and left me in the blind by myself.  Not having a lot of confidence in my shooting abilities, I looked at this to be an opportunity to prove myself.  Sure enough I got a nice pass on a small flock of birds.  Killed two.  Just couldn't wait to show them to my Dad.  When Chief brought the first one in, I was crushed to see it was a Merganser.  When he went back for the second bird, I closed my eyes and prayed it was a real duck.  That didn't work.  Whatever.  I had shot well. Nice double on a good pass.  But Mergansers, not real ducks.

First time that I ever had any money in my life, I spent it on decoys from Herters.  Don't remember exactly when it was, back in the 1960's, and for a limited time Herters was selling off the last of their balsa wood decoys.  I bought a pair of Mallards.  I was very proud of them.  I think maybe we had a couple dozen Model 63 Mallards back then, but mostly old paper mache blocks.  My fancy balsa wood decoys really stood out.  Dad and I were hunting a blind we had back in Bear Wallow.  Too windy to hunt our main blind out on the lake.  So, anyhow, I asked Dad if we could separate my pair from the rest of the spread to see if they looked better to the ducks.  We placed them off to the side of the stool, sort of like they were swimming up the channel to join the other decoys.  Looked very realistic.  Waiting on shooting time, half frozen, I fell asleep.  Woke up sometime later and the first thing I saw was a pair of Mallards swimming in to us.  I eased my gun up, not saying anything to my Dad.  When he heard me click off the safety he said, "Are you going to shoot those nice decoys?"

Dad and Harry Fleming and I were hunting Walnut Island one time.  Nice flock of geese came into the bay and we started calling.  They turned right towards us.  Dad was already cautioning us to remember the limit was two apiece, and to be careful.  Well, the geese landed short.  We called a little more and they swam into our decoys.  Probably 40 geese right in the pocket and in among the decoys.  One more time, Dad reminded us to only kill a pair.  They stood up and shot.  I waited until the birds cleared the water, swung with a bird and killed him stone dead.  Swung on another bird, concentrating on the goose and not letting anything distract me.  Unfortunately, I didn't let the other birds that were trying to escape distract me,  and as my bird fell, two more directly on the far side of mine also fell out stone dead.  Four big Canada Geese down with my two shots.  Luckily, two of the birds that Dad and Harry shot were just cripples.  Dad chased them in the boat, and was able to herd them into some other hunters' decoys.  The other hunters said thanks, but it was us that were thankful.

One year at Oldfield Island I went out in the decoys to break up an ice floe coming through the decoys.  Underestimated the weight and momentum of the ice.  As it was shoving me backwards, I tripped over an old stump under the water and the iceberg sort of floated over me as I was trying to regain my footing.  I was completely submerged, looking up at the bottom of the ice, clinging to the leading edge and trying to pull myself back up, with very little success.  Next thing I knew, my Dad grabbed me by the coat collar and lunged his large frame against the ice.  He slowed it's progress enough to pull me back up.  Learned a lesson about ice that day that I never forgotten.

One day I sat on a little Wood Duck hole, hoping a few Woodies might return after the morning flight.  Nothing much happening.  Across the little hole, about 50 yards away, I was surprised to see a fully mature Snow Goose swimming around, minding it's own business.  I was shocked, but immediately started sneaking around the edge of the pothole, trying to get close enough for a shot.  When I was at the closest point that I could get to the goose, I was still a little unsure of what was going on.  The more that I peeked out  of the underbrush to spy on the bird, the more I was convinced that something just wasn't right.  It started to swim into the mouth of the small stream that formed the pothole and suddenly I realized it wasn't a Snow Goose at all, but just a domestic white duck.  I was very glad that I hadn't shot someones pet.  The next evening, a friend of mine called me to tell me the great news that he had killed a Snow Goose on the little Wood Duck pond.  Last time I saw him, he still had the mounted goose on the wall.

There have probably been a few more miscues, but no harm, no foul.  At least I never left my gun on the dike when I waded out into a public hunting impoundment.  Never took the wrong gauge shells to match the gun I was shooting.  Never let feral hogs find my gunning bag and eat all my shells.  Never let a flock of Green Wings fly over me so close that they pooped on my new hat and not get a shot off.  Never let my dog run off in the marsh, tied to a military ammo can, and retrieve other hunters' birds.  Never let my boat float away.  Never lost a gun on a canoe tip-over.  Never had my dog eat my hunting partner's ducks.  Never had the magazine cap come off and spring gun parts out into the marsh.  Never pooped in my waders.

I'm still alive and kicking after 55 years of waterfowling, so I have avoided the big mistakes.

A Good Dog

When I got my first Lab, I had no prior experience at training a retriever.  I had been the "assistant" when Dad and Harry Fleming  worked with Harry's dog, Midnight.  She was slow and steady.  Got the easy birds, passed on the difficult retrieves.  When she had a litter of puppies, I was given one for the help that I had been to Harry.  Harry also gave me a book to read to help me train Chief.  I would say the book gave me all the basics to start my dog.  But I had no training equipment, no access to water, nothing.  Basically my homemade retrieving dummies and my back yard.  Chief was actually only in the water one time prior to making his first retrieve when he was 5 months old.  I tried, but my Dad truly let me down.  Somehow he had been so long without a retriever, that he didn't expect much from a dog.  Keep it on a leash, throw rocks toward a dead bird to get the dog to head that direction.  So, all my requests for help fell on deaf ears.  Dad never had a retriever, content to rely on other hunters.  To my knowledge he never had a dog in his life that he cared about, or was worth a damn.  Whatever.  But when my dogs performed well, he was the first one to step up and include himself in the credit for having a good dog.

Let that go.

When Chief was about 5 years old, he was a fine retriever.  His only shortfall was his failure to go very far "back" on a blind retrieve.  I take the blame for that.  I didn't have access to the proper terrain to teach him.  He would only go "back" about the length of my backyard.  Huh, imagine that.  Other than that he was a fine gundog.  Something that I didn't train into him was his keen nose.  I swear he had the nose of a fine bird dog.  Quail and pheasant were a sure thing with him.  He even ran rabbits, not that I wanted him too.  He used his nose to all of our benefit, finding numerous ducks in solid reed patches where marking a bird was really only feasible to a small extent.  He worked fallen Jacksnipe without ever losing one, in the thickest of cattails and reeds.  Sweet.

So, anyhow, one day Dad and I were hunting in Lucy's Pond.  We liked to set up in the first big opening just inside Blackhawk Point.  About 5 acres of semi open water.  A few lillypads and reeds, but a nice open water pond in the big marsh.  That place was a fallback option for us when it was too windy to hunt our blinds.  We had about 3 dozen Mallard decoys scattered along the bank and hoped for ducks to come into the marsh to get out of the wind.  A Mallard drake swung on us, stayed a little wide, but was fairly low on the water.  We both shot and he he crippled down about 80 yards from us, in near the bank on the end of the pothole.  I sent the dog and he headed right towards the Mallard.  The duck was swimming for shore, and I figured Chief would have no trouble.  After a few minutes of Chief hunting around where we had last seen the duck, we lost sight of them both.  I started a circuitous journey around the bank to get over there and see what was going on.  When I got over there, I was up on a 10 foot high bank with a very steep incline down to the water.  No sign of the duck or the dog.  I couldn't see any way Chief could have climbed that bank, if the duck had somehow gotten up there.  As I wandered around and called for the dog, I seemed to hear splashing, almost under my feet.  I was perplexed.  Finally I saw that the earth was caved away along there, and I was only standing on tangled tree roots with a little dirt clinging to them.  I stood very still, ignored Dad's instructions and told him to be quiet.  I could here the faint sound of splashing and it sounded like a dog attempting to climb up the bank.  Turned out the duck dove and swam in under the bank, sort of into an underground cavern and Chief had followed him under.

I hollered at Dad to bring the boat, thinking that if I could get down to the water, right where he had disappeared, make a commotion and maybe he would dive under the edge and come back out.  But I was seriously concerned.  Before Dad even got up to head for the boat, Chief popped up, breathing hard, with a nice fat Mallard in his jaws.

I was relieved, and very proud of my dog.

We hunted on, killed a couple more birds and were having a good time.  Chief loved it when I hunted there, sitting on the bank, because he could sit right next to me.  We both loved it.

So a while later a hen Mallard flew by.  Didn't really look at our decoys, but instead flew out the end of the pothole then abruptly landed in what looked like a solid patch of cattails.  We called for a while, but the duck wasn't interested.  I told Dad that I was going to try to walk and wade over there to see if I could jump the Mallard.  Off Chief and I went on what I almost considered a fools errand, but nothing else much was happening.

It was difficult to get there, but the wind was in my face, so the duck would have had a hard time hearing us in that windstorm.  Suddenly Chief seemed to go on point.  The reeds were far too thick to see a duck, but Chief was solidly on point, facing the wind.  I crept forward, Chief crept forward, we pushed on about 15 yards through the reeds.  There she came, big Mallard hen, jumped about 20 yards in front of me.  She climbed a little, then about the time she leveled out, I leveled her.  Chief  fetched her back to me in nothing flat.

Of course when we got back over to our hunting spot, I had to listen to Dad run off at the mouth about "good" dogs he had seen do this and that.  Just a droning in my ears, like the unrelenting wind that was howling the worst of the day.  I didn't need anyone to tell me about good duck dogs, I had one of my own.

Row, row, row your boat

One year during November, the Scoter were on the Pamlico Sound by the thousands.  We had anticipated their migration and I was on leave from the Marines for a full week.  Dad and I and a couple other friends had a great week.  Six months later, after eating 300 Scoters, I thought that possibly we had overdone it.  But when the ducks were falling and the gun barrels were hot, it was great.

One morning it was just Dad and I.  We  shot a 14 bird limit in an hour or so.  Just fantastic.  Went back to the hunting camp, dressed the birds, then drove around looking for some of our local friends up there on the island to give the birds to.  Mission accomplished, we returned to the trailer for a nap.

About noon I woke up, looked out to see that the weather was just perfect, and decided to see if Dad wanted to go out and try the Scoter again. Never had shot them in the afternoon, but decided to give it a try.

Same success as the morning hunt.  An hour after we put out the decoys, we were ready to pick up and head in.  Not so fast.  The outboard motor wouldn't start.  Turned out to be a short in the kill switch, but out there on the sound we had no clue.  We decided to leave the decoys on the water.  It was 3 dozen heavy cork decoys, so we wanted to save the extra weight on the long row in.  Then I headed to the nearest point of land and we removed the boat blind from the boat and set it up the shore.  To lighten the boat and give a more full range of motion while rowing.

Anybody that ever rowed a Herters Model Yukon can appreciate the weight of the boat, the wide beam of the boat, the high wind catching sides, and the lack of a good deep keel to help steer.  Just to add to the excitement, for the first and only day of my hunting career, I didn't have any gloves in my gunning box.  Added to that was the fact that my Father didn't happen to have his evening dose of heart medication.  Sweet.

About six hours later, with my hands worn pretty much to the bone, we arrived back at the landing.

The next morning, Dad took the boat to a marina to get the motor repaired, and I took Whit's Sea Ox out and found my decoys.  Shot a limit of Scoters while I was there.  Sore hands and all.

The 10 Gauge Magnum

In 1968 one of our hunting partners at Indian Lake got lucky enough to kill a Canada Goose.  First one any of us had ever seen killed on our lake.  He and Dad were hunting our blind in the Reed Patch.  Foggy morning, not much moving.  Finally crippled down a Bluebill.  It swam back into the reeds behind the blind and Dad was back in there, searching for it, when he heard a Goose honk.  He looked up and there were a half dozen geese sailing into the decoys.  His partner stood up and shot, taking off a wingtip on his third shell,  Dad eventually found the crippled goose out in the fog.

I remember when our friend got back to town, he brought the goose over so I could see it.  Beautiful.

About that time, another friend of Dad's came across a deal to buy some 10 gauge magnum AYA Matador doubles.  It was a magnificent piece.  Dad hunted with the guys that bought them, over on a nearby lake that held a few geese and they all killed birds and loved the big guns.

Shells were expensive, Dad set up a loader so he could reload his empties and save some money.  He practiced a little with the big gun, and was all ready for the next season.

Curiously enough, I was able to get off opening day the following year.  Not only was I excited but I was anxious to see what the big magnum could do.  I could just envision knocking down entire flocks of ducks.  I killed a couple of ducks early and we were enjoying our day.  In the distance we spotted a single Canada Goose winging our way.  Dad said for me to kill it if it came by.  But, even though I had never killed a goose, I told him to take it because I wanted to see the big gun in action.  Sure enough the goose came in and Dad stood up and killed it.  A 20 gauge gun would have killed it, it was so close.  But not only did the 10 gauge knock the bird clear over on it's back, but fire and smoke roared out of the gun when he fired.  Awesome.

Dad immediately opened his gun and looked at the empty shell.  It was all burned and charred.  I sent the dog to retrieve his goose and told him how totally impressed that I was with his 10 gauge.  He was not all that impressed.  He was concerned about the fire and smoke.  Finally decided that a wad must have been slightly cocked in the shell he had reloaded and that had caused the strange explosion when he fired.  Whatever, the wonder of the big magnum still excited me.

A couple weeks later, Dad and I were out in the blind again.  Slow morning, so he decided to take the boat over to a marina and get some beer and sandwiches.  Sounded good to me.  Not only the snacks, but me being alone in the blind with the 10 gauge.  I have never hunted so hard, or watched so closely for ducks in my life.  I wanted so badly to shoot the big gun.  Finally a nice flock of Mallards came my way.  Probably were close enough to shoot, but I was nervous and wasn't sure.  They landed outside the decoys, but immediately started swimming away.  I was crushed.  I thought on busting them on the water, but was afraid to try.  I told Dad about the Mallards when he got back.  He said that the big magnum was not magic.  It really couldn't kill birds any farther away, just had a much denser pattern due to the 2 ounces of shot in each shell.

Dad continued to shoot the 10 gauge for a few years.  But was never 100% happy with the performance.  Plastic, shot cup wads had been invented around that time frame, making drastic improvements in the patterning and performance of our 12 gauge guns, but nobody was manufacturing those new wads for 10 gauge shells.  After I got my 870 3" magnum, Dad became increasingly disappointed with the performance of his 10 gauge.  I attributed it to my superior gunning skills, but I was definitely out shooting Dad on the ducks.  Christmas week of  '71 or '72 we were having a great Mallard and Black migration and really stacking up the birds.  After Dad missed both barrels on a long shot, I killed the bird stone dead.  Right there in the blind, he said he was getting rid of the 10 and getting himself a 12 gauge magnum like I shot.

Sure hated to see the beautiful magnum double go.  I even tracked it down 15 years later and tried to buy it back, but had no luck.  The new owner had retired from duck hunting, and retired the gun along with him.

I know that I was just a youngster, and Dad was probably right about that bad shell he fired and killed that first goose, but to this day I still have a great mental image of the fire and smoke and dead goose on it's back in the decoys.

You Never Know

Years ago when I was stationed at HQMC, an acquaintance invited me on a fishing trip.  I was pretty lost up there in that big city, and looked forward to a day afield.  We had about an hour drive to the farm of a deployed Marine General.  We visited briefly with the family then hiked into the woods to a small, secluded pond, deep in the woods.  Bluegill heaven.  Absolutely the nicest, biggest Bluegills that I have ever caught.  A great time!  On the way back to the car, I noticed a nice little pasture field on the farm, with a few doves moving around.  We discussed that with the family and returned the following weekend for a dove shoot.  Not many birds were moving, so we walked around the farm checking on other areas to try.  When we came to the far end of the property, I could see a huge marsh ahead of us.  I asked my friend about that property and he said it didn't belong to the General, but possibly to one of his neighbors.  

After we finished up with the dove shooting and went to say goodbye to the family, I asked about that marsh that I had seen.  One of the children seemed to know more than anybody else and was pretty sure it was a public hunting area.  She said there was always a lot of shooting back there.  

Over the next couple of weeks, I researched the marsh and never could get an answer on how much of it was public and how much was privately owned.  Apparently, if you entered by vehicle, on the far end of the marsh, there were signs indicating what was private property and what was public hunting.  I didn't have a boat, decoys, or retriever up there in DC with me, so I figured that the public hunting area was too far from where I had seen the marsh originally, for me to walk/wade in.  Opening day of duck season, I made arrangements with the General's wife to park at their farm and walk in through their property.  I packed in my waders, on the long walk through the woods, but made it to the marsh by shooting time.

The marsh was full of hunters and the shooting was pretty intense for the first 20 minutes.  Nothing moved at all on the end of the marsh where I was hunting.  I was about to call it quits when a little bunch of Teal sailed right into marsh in front of me.  I killed a couple, used a wading stick I had cut, and made my way out to the fallen birds.  I jammed the stick in the mud to get a mark and then waded around and found my birds.  About the time that I went back to get my wading stick, a pair of Wood Ducks came over.  I was able to knock them both down and retrieved them without too much effort.  The shooting was over with on the marsh, but I was very happy with the morning.  Waded back to the bank and started taking off my waders for the walk back to my Jeep.  Dancing around on one leg at a time, trying to get the waders off, I heard the distinct quack of a Mallard hen.  I stopped, hunkered down and looked out on the marsh.  I saw the hen along with 3 drakes.  From where I was they were already in shooting range, slowly swimming towards me.  One boot on, one wader foot still on, I stood and smacked down a drake when they jumped.  That was a full limit, so I couldn't have been happier.

When I got back to the farm house, I thought maybe I'd offer some ducks to the family.  I went up to the back porch and the wife and two kids met me at the door.  They were quite happy to take some ducks, all the ducks in fact.  But I figured it was a good investment in future hunts.  After I had cleaned the birds and had them soaking, the eldest daughter asked me where I had hunted.  I told her that I had gone to the edge of the marsh, directly behind their property.  She told me that she had asked her Dad about that land and was told it was owned by a hunting club and that nobody was allowed to even walk around back there, much less hunt.  She said her Dad had told her that a lot of people got arrested back there every year for trespassing.

Oh, well...

Fair is Fair

Way back when we were hunting at Indian Lake, I got my feelings hurt one day and sat for a long time, trying to figure out a way of getting back at my hunting partners.  I was home on leave from the service and really didn't have that many days to hunt.  Certainly I wanted to make the best of the days that I did have.  We had the Walnut Island Blind and it was producing some pretty good shooting.  Then, two days in a row, we had geese working to our decoys, only to have them sail right past us and into the decoys of some other hunters in the next blind over.  We knew the guys hunting there and were happy for them, but disappointed that the geese had skipped us by.

Turned out that a couple of those other guys had to go back to work and the remaining hunter, not wanting to hunt by himself, asked us if we wanted to get together for a day.  We were interested in seeing his decoy spread up close and checking out his blind, so we agreed to go with him the next day.  The only bad thing about it was that they didn't hunt with a retriever and had no dog porch or ladder and really no way to bring my dog.  I still wanted to hunt with him so we had to leave Chief behind for a day.

His decoys were nice.  First Restle duck decoys that I had ever seen.  Also had some gigantic homemade Canada Goose decoys.  We had seen the big geese, but up close they were really big and nicely made.  We got them set out pretty nicely and by shooting time we had ducks in the decoys.

The water at that blind was just on the edge of being too deep to wade the decoys, or retrieve birds.  They had a 20 foot piece of copper pipe with a crook bent in one end that they used to assist with the retrieving on the really close dead birds.  Well, being the youngest, I was designated as the retriever for the day.  Just as bad luck would have it, on a couple passes of ducks, I was just finishing up the previous retrieving and wasn't back in the blind in time to shoot.  Guess that is just bad luck.

Then on one instance, while I was working my way back up the shore from fetching a cripple, I heard Dad and Bysack calling geese.  I hurried  as fast as I could and got back to the blind just after the geese landed in the decoys.  As I was reloading my 870, I asked where the geese were.  Both of them said "just to the right of the decoys".  Well, I was on the right end of the blind, and figured I was all set.  The geese flew, somebody said to "take 'em" so we all stood up to shoot.  I heard them both shooting but saw nothing.  Turns out that while I was out of the blind, they had rearranged our goose decoys much farther around to the left of the point where the blind was, and the geese had been just to the right of the goose decoys.  Not where I could even see them, much less get any shooting.

I was crushed.  I hadn't killed many geese up to that point in my life, and to think on geese landing in the decoys and me not even getting off a shot, was really a kick in the ass.  So, the day went on.  We killed a nice bunch of birds, mostly all Mallards, so were all enjoying the day.  Probably about 15 minutes till quitting time, Bysack asked if we were ready to pick up,  and Dad responded that he wanted another shot at some geese, and they frequently flew around sunset.  Just on a hunch, I switched over the shells in my gun to some very heavy goose loads, #4 Buck.  Luck was with us and there came a flock of geese, slowly working their way up the lake.  We called and called and finally it looked like they were going to come by us, but not stop to look at the decoys.  Suddenly one set it's wings and they all landed.  Out of gun range.  Dad and Bysack pondered on what to do, and I went ahead with my own plan.  I stood up, got one goose on the water and two more when they flew.  My partners hollered around and then started shooting, managing to cripple down one more bird.  When we were retrieving the birds they asked me why I hadn't shared my plan with them.  I responded that sharing info was a two way street and maybe they should have treated me a little better on the first pass of geese.

The duck gods must have agreed with me.  Two of my birds were banded.

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.