Stiff Wind, Stiff Tail

The last hunt of  the season was
yesterday.  I had to solo hunt since
my buddy was hunting in Texas.

I got up at 0200 and checked the
weather.  It was 50 degrees instead
of the forecast 44.  At 50, I haven't
needed a jacket, but I took one any-
way.  Better to be safe than sorry and
the wind was forecast 10-12 mph
with 20 mph gusts.  I thought there
might be some wind chill on the
marsh.

I got to the ramp at 0400 and it
was noticeably cooler than at the
house.  I was glad for the jacket.

Getting the kayak to the water
was an ordeal.  I couldn't get
the boat on the cart correctly,
but it worked well enough to
get down the hill and across
the levee.  Unfortunately,
when I unstrapped the boat,
I found that one of the
supporting arms had cracked.
Hauling it back up at the end
of the hunt would be by brute
force, but that was for later:  I
needed to get out to paddling.

With no GPS and no stars in
the sky, I had to navigate by
picking a cell tower in the east
and paddling towards that.

I tried several of the small
floating islands that I came
across, but none of them would
work:  no cover, no hydrilla, too
close to other hunters.  I paddled
east quite aways before I turned
back west and finally found a spot.

By now, the wind had really picked
up.  Since my dousing a few weeks
back, I was nervous trying to paddle
around, tow the sled and toss out
the dekes.  Nonetheless, I managed it.
One thing that made it easier was that
I only brought 5 ringer decoys and 12
coot decoys.  Still, I could only toss
one or two out at a time before I had
to paddle back into the NW wind
and start over. 

I decided to camo up on the west side
of the island in some low dollar weed
type stuff.  It took 4 or 5 tries to get the
boat angled right.  Much to my surprise
I found that all of my palmetto fans
had blown out of the sled and were
nowhere to be found.  I'd even managed
to lose the coot decoy bag.  I was fairly
exposed, but that's the way it had to
be.

I had an hour and a half to sit and wait
for 06:42 and shooting time.  Without
Mike to talk to, I was pretty bored. On
top of that small waves would slap
the back of the boat and jar my
memories of tipping over.  Also, I
was fairly cold in the wind that
had to be well over the forecast.

I had one distressing moment after
I was set up.  I looked in front and
saw the black mass of another island
right in front of me.  It would cut
me off from any birds flying in.
I looked and looked at it and it seemed
to be moving toward the wind.
I eventually figured out that it was
several hundred coots wadded
together.  And they did cut me
off all day.

When shooting time did come,
there wasn't much action from the
north side of the 4000 acre marsh.
That's where most folks hunt closer
to the bank and under more cover.
I feel like they spend a lot of time
"skybusting" and unable to get
the vistas that hunting farther out
gives me. 

By 0800, I hadn't fired a shot
because there were no ducks
near me.  There were no ducks
anywhere.  I looked to my left and
saw a duck swimming into my spread.
I wasn't going to waste the oppor-
tunity and shot it on the water.
I quickly pulled in my camo netting
and paddled over to it before the
wind blew it too far away.  Small
duck of a kind I didn't recognize
right away.  Turns out it was a
hen ruddy duck.  It is in the
family of stiff tailed ducks
because it will swim with its
tail feathers pointing up like
a sail.

Sometime later, I saw two ducks
flying low towards the island from
the east.  Instead of flying over
the decoys, they flew behind the
island.  I turned my body as hard
as I could and nailed a drake blue
wing teal with a tough over the
shoulder shot. Normal targeting
is from 10-12 o'clock out the
front of the boat. 

A new species!

Finally, the ringers started flying,
but they wanted nothing to do
with my small spread of decoys.
All day long, I'd watch birds look
at my dekes and then turn to
join their buddies swimming with
hundreds of coots.   Way to the south
I could see hundreds of ducks
milling around and not even
flying up our way.  There's no
cover down there and paddling
that far is out of the question.

I didn't even wait for the 10 o'clock
duck.  At 0945, I unloaded the gun
and went to get my decoys.  I'd found
my decoy bag during one of the
retrieves, so that wasn't a loss.

Paddling back was an ordeal
because it was straight into
the wind.  But I ended the day
on the plus side - in fact - I
did better than anyone else I
talked to at the ramp.  One young
man was good enough to help
me tote the kayak up the hill to
my truck.  He kept a pretty fast
pace up and I was huffing and
puffing when we got done.

Here endeth the season. 

You've Got to Really Hate Ducks to Do This

Ugh, rough day yesterday.  Went out
to the area we limited in last week.  The
report was that the ducks weren't flying
like they had been and it proved true.
 I thought the December lull was over
and January might be the turn around -
it sure wasn't yesterday.

We headed out from the ramp at 0400
and paddled with a pretty good west
wind at our backs for a long ways
until we found a floating mud island
of beach daisies  and sticks.  Putting
the decoys out was exhausting because
the wind was pushing us out into the
impoundment so strongly.  But we
did get them all out and got ourselves
hidden in the island.

I faced due east and my buddy due
south.  We could see them coming
from all directions, but they were
mostly several hundred yards south
of us in big, open water.  A few
came in early, I dropped one that
landed four feet behind me.  Anchoring
it at that distance didn't leave much
duck.  My buddy had to water whack
his in the decoys after waiting five
minutes for it to jump up and fly.

While a few other chances presented
themselves, and I missed spectacularly,
most birds stayed outside the dekes.
We set 0900 as our give up time and
sure enough one flnal ringer came through
the decoys.  I hit it and it landed crippled
to my north.

I headed out to retrieve it hurriedly,  so
hurriedly in fact that I didn't think to
pull in the camo netting I had over the
bow and trailing in the water.  The
wind was really starting to blow by
then too.

I paddled out to the duck and took
three more shots to put its head
down.  Those hulls in the water proved
to be both disastrous and beneficial
for what happened next.  I got the bird
and then went to pick up the hulls..
I was broadside to the wind and
sliding up next to a hull.  I barely
reached over to grab the hull when
I giant force tipped the kayak over
and all my gear and I went into the
water. I think the trailing edge of the
camo netting grabbed the hydrilla and
pulled the kayak under.

Thankfully, the water wasn't as deep
as it had been last year, but it was still
chest deep.  I grabbed the netting,
my blind bag, a few things that could
float and tossed those back in the boat.
My gun, new GPS, and a box of shells
were gone.

I hollered for my buddy to come help
because I thought I could still find the
gun.  He paddled his layout boat over
and tried to hold my kayak and his in
place.  He started to drift off unable
to paddle and hold on to my boat.
Eventually, he secured a rope to
my boat's bow.  I had started to wade
after him, and had lost the place
where the gun sank.  Again,
thankfully, I had marked the spot
by two of my hulls stuck in the
hydrilla.

I waded back and forth for what
seemed like 20 minutes before I had
my Excalibur moment and kicked
the gun up with my feet.

I gave the gun and blind bag to
my buddy to hold in his boat
while I tried to get back in mine.
I had watched a video many months
back on how to get back in a kayak
from deep water.  It worked perfently
until I tried to swing my legs in.  The
waders were full of gallons of water
and I couldn't lift my legs from the
weight.  How I finally did, I don't
know.

We paddled back to the blind and
picked up our decoy sleds.  I got
my remaining gear back and headed
out to pick up dekes.  I didn't pay
too much attention and just tossed
my Texas rigged decoys in the sled.
(that was a mistake).

We had to paddle home into the
teeth of the wind.  I thought it was
just the additional weight of the
water in my waders and the strength
of the wind, but the Fowl Trouble
was paddling like it was named
the Fowl Scow.  My buddy was
back to the ramp 30 minutes
before I was.

When I got there, I had to get
out of the kayak and slosh up on
the levee to dump the water out
of my waders.  My buddy said
he wished he had a camera for
that moment.

He pulled my decoy sled up on
the bank.  Some of the decoy
weights had trailed in the water
and grabbed about thirty pounds
of hydrilla.  That was what was
making the paddling extra hard.

My first duck hunt started with my
flipping a canoe twenty years ago.
But it worked out when I got back
to the ramp and ran into that same
buddy coming in from his own
duck hunt.  He eventually hired
me back at my present company.

A couple of years ago, I got
ejected from my duck boat on
a solo hunt, but had no damage
to me, boat, or hunt.  My buddy
says I've never met a boat I
couldn't fall out of.

I completely stripped, cleaned,
and super oiled by gun.  My
IPhone is another matter.  It's
in a bowl of rice now, but I don't
expect it to live.  The waterproof
case and the zip lock bag it was
in kept out a lot of water, but not
enough.

I am very glad to be alive today.
Things could have been very
different.

"You've got to really hate ducks
to do this." says Joe Richter.

Against the Wind

Worked hard for this limit (first of the season)
last week. Six minutes before legal light, the
marsh opened up with shots ringing out. My
buddy and I couldn’t see what they were shooting
at. At 8:30 AM we only had two ducks down
and were watching distant dots as ducks flew
nowhere near us. But patience paid off. As
the sun got higher and the wind picked up,
more and more ringers flew past our spread
and some decoyed. The wind stiffened so
that they were almost standing still in the
breeze. I’m still learning how to hunt from 
the kayak, and went through a lot of shells. 
I dropped my sixth duck with my last shot 
and had to borrow a couple of shells to 
anchor it. 

Picking up the decoys and paddling back in
the wind were tricky. The odd thing was that
some people were still shooting at 10:30 and
we beat most boats back to the ramp. Seems
like a lot of guys might have been sky
busting their day.


One really bright spot was the device Number
1 kid and I made to float my Mojo teal. It
worked perfectly and handled the wind like
a champ.

We had a duck feast for Number 1 kid and
his family and Number 7 kid home on leave. 
Number 6 kid added his culinary talents. 
We had a whole wood duck, whole mottle,
and three whole bwts.  Tossed in a few snipe
and also had ringer breasts.   We marinated
all of it in Italian dressing.  The ringer breasts
were split open and stuffed with cream cheese
and pepperocini slice before being wrapped
in bacon.  All of it was then grilled over a
charcoal fire. 

Served medium rare, it was great.

os