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Welcome to my world...............Duck hunting orchidman style.
Today was the last weekend of our Duck season. ( Coincidentally it was also a long weekend with today being a holiday to celebrate Queens Birthday )
Decided that I was going to spend 3 days out on the salt chasing ducks. The charter boat is out of the water for its survey so it is the first weekend that I have had completely free for a long time..
Headed out on sat solo. Called a couple of hunting buddies but everyone else seemed to be busy. Managed to bring home 4 mallards for dinner. Weather was fine and calm so there was little to move the birds around. Also prominent was the lack of shooting on the harbour. Only heard 2 shots ( apart from my own ) all day.
Took my mate GB yesterday and headed to an area I haven't shot for a couple of years. It used to be a good producer but after setting up in a likely spot we didn't see a single bird for 2 hrs. I elected to move so we pulled the decoys in and headed to a place where 3 creeks converge.
Saw some birds get off the water as we approached so we set the dekes and were about to camo up when this guy arrived...........
800+ kilometres of shoreline and he decides that he wants to fish where we are hunting.
He decided to park alongside the decoy spread and started fishing. Had a short polite discussion with him and asked how long he was going to stay. He didn't give any answer but told us that we were free to move....... Decided to wait him out. An hour later ( after having a very comical conversation with GB about where we could bury the body and what we could do with his yak ) I decided to pull the pin and head home. As soon as we started pulling decoys out he headed off. (I think he was one of them greenie, left leaning liberals and stayed deliberately to screw our hunting)
Score for sunday was nil.
Today, once again I ended up doing a solo trip. Weather had changed from calm clear and still to windy, rain/showers so I headed to the 'honey hole'............the spot that where I first started hunting with my Dad over 50 yrs ago. ( I always like to finish the season there as it gives me a chance to reflect on all the good and bad days that have made up my hunting memories.)
Arrived just as the tide was covering the banks and set the decoy spread. While I had over 50 dekes in the boat, I decided to only set about 20 as when the tide goes out you can get caught and I figured that a small spread is better than having to sit there for 12 hrs waiting for the tide to come back in and float me off.
Ended up with 6 birds and a whole lot of time to reminisce about previous years, and in particular the hunting mentors that taught me a lot about duck hunting.
I then decided to get the video out and share a bit of my world with you guys...........apologies for the amateurish attempt but it will give you some idea of what its like.
Feel free to ask any questions.
After taking the video I waited till the tide dropped to the point where I had to get out of the boat and push it across the mud into the creek. (No more birds came in after the video. )
Got the boat up on the plane and headed down the creek.........I figured I was cutting it fine with regards to the tide.........yep.............Got to where the creek opens out and could see the shallow mud bank that forms a 'bar' type barrier across the mouth.
Didn't fancy spending the next 12 hours waiting for the water to come back in so I checked that everything was secure, the motor was set so that it would tilt when we hit the mud and opened the throttle. ( 13' ally boat with a 35hp Yamaha.........it does just on 30knots according to my GPS...........but at full throttle with only one person in it the boat is a bit 'tender'.)
Took aim for the narrowest part of the exposed mudbank, wound the kill switch cord around my wrist in case I got thrown out................and went for it!.
The boat scarcely slowed down when I slid up onto the mud..........skidded for about 35yds in a straight line and dropped into the water on the other side. I didn't even bother to hit the kill switch, just throttled off. As soon as the outboard dropped back into the water I opened the throttle and headed back for the ramp.
(In case you are wondering, I have done this before.................just not quite as fast lol.)
I figure it was a fitting way to end the season.................sort of a 'hold my beer and watch this' moment. ( I should have videoed it)
The season where I normally shoot is now finished..............but about 15miles north of where I was today, the season goes for another 3 weeks. Hopefully I can get out again but with the balloted hunting season starting next weekend and the patrols I will be doing plus the charter boat going back into the water soon, it doesn't seem likely.
Decided that I was going to spend 3 days out on the salt chasing ducks. The charter boat is out of the water for its survey so it is the first weekend that I have had completely free for a long time..
Headed out on sat solo. Called a couple of hunting buddies but everyone else seemed to be busy. Managed to bring home 4 mallards for dinner. Weather was fine and calm so there was little to move the birds around. Also prominent was the lack of shooting on the harbour. Only heard 2 shots ( apart from my own ) all day.
Took my mate GB yesterday and headed to an area I haven't shot for a couple of years. It used to be a good producer but after setting up in a likely spot we didn't see a single bird for 2 hrs. I elected to move so we pulled the decoys in and headed to a place where 3 creeks converge.
Saw some birds get off the water as we approached so we set the dekes and were about to camo up when this guy arrived...........
800+ kilometres of shoreline and he decides that he wants to fish where we are hunting.
He decided to park alongside the decoy spread and started fishing. Had a short polite discussion with him and asked how long he was going to stay. He didn't give any answer but told us that we were free to move....... Decided to wait him out. An hour later ( after having a very comical conversation with GB about where we could bury the body and what we could do with his yak ) I decided to pull the pin and head home. As soon as we started pulling decoys out he headed off. (I think he was one of them greenie, left leaning liberals and stayed deliberately to screw our hunting)
Score for sunday was nil.
Today, once again I ended up doing a solo trip. Weather had changed from calm clear and still to windy, rain/showers so I headed to the 'honey hole'............the spot that where I first started hunting with my Dad over 50 yrs ago. ( I always like to finish the season there as it gives me a chance to reflect on all the good and bad days that have made up my hunting memories.)
Arrived just as the tide was covering the banks and set the decoy spread. While I had over 50 dekes in the boat, I decided to only set about 20 as when the tide goes out you can get caught and I figured that a small spread is better than having to sit there for 12 hrs waiting for the tide to come back in and float me off.
Ended up with 6 birds and a whole lot of time to reminisce about previous years, and in particular the hunting mentors that taught me a lot about duck hunting.
I then decided to get the video out and share a bit of my world with you guys...........apologies for the amateurish attempt but it will give you some idea of what its like.
Feel free to ask any questions.
After taking the video I waited till the tide dropped to the point where I had to get out of the boat and push it across the mud into the creek. (No more birds came in after the video. )
Got the boat up on the plane and headed down the creek.........I figured I was cutting it fine with regards to the tide.........yep.............Got to where the creek opens out and could see the shallow mud bank that forms a 'bar' type barrier across the mouth.
Didn't fancy spending the next 12 hours waiting for the water to come back in so I checked that everything was secure, the motor was set so that it would tilt when we hit the mud and opened the throttle. ( 13' ally boat with a 35hp Yamaha.........it does just on 30knots according to my GPS...........but at full throttle with only one person in it the boat is a bit 'tender'.)
Took aim for the narrowest part of the exposed mudbank, wound the kill switch cord around my wrist in case I got thrown out................and went for it!.
The boat scarcely slowed down when I slid up onto the mud..........skidded for about 35yds in a straight line and dropped into the water on the other side. I didn't even bother to hit the kill switch, just throttled off. As soon as the outboard dropped back into the water I opened the throttle and headed back for the ramp.
(In case you are wondering, I have done this before.................just not quite as fast lol.)
I figure it was a fitting way to end the season.................sort of a 'hold my beer and watch this' moment. ( I should have videoed it)
The season where I normally shoot is now finished..............but about 15miles north of where I was today, the season goes for another 3 weeks. Hopefully I can get out again but with the balloted hunting season starting next weekend and the patrols I will be doing plus the charter boat going back into the water soon, it doesn't seem likely.
Still enjoying the trip of a lifetime and making the best of what I have.....
Replies
10 foot surf spinning rod, reel loaded with 100# braid, 3 foot 150# flurocarbon leader, and a 6 oz. sinker at the end of the leader works pretty good on jet skiers. Probably better on a kayak; it ain't moving near as fast as a jet ski. :roll2:
― Douglas Adams
As for the guy in the Yak, that's what I was thinking, he's probably an **** Bunny Hugging Scumbag. Too bad you didn't have any torpedos handy you could have deep sixed him with.
As for getting caught with the tide going out, I remember about 25 years ago going up a creek known as Coloma Creek which has four lakes along the way. I took my Lawyer cousin in law up to the 3rd lake which I had been hunting that season. He had his two boys and I had my two.
We went up about 4 miles to the third lake and set out about 40 dekes and got in a couple of blinds there. We shot a few ducks and then a norther blew in with strong NE winds. I didn't think much of it at first. I figured it would take at least a day to blow the water out where we would have a problem. However, after only a couple hours I noticed some of the dekes listing to the side. They were lying on their keels already and the tide had gone bye bye pretty much. So I told them all to load the boat because we were getting the hell out of Dodge while the getting was good.
But too late. We got through the 2nd lake and the first lake and we came to the flats there. There wasn't 4 inches of water there and we had about 400 yards of flats left ahead.
We spent the better part of the afternoon pulling the boat across the flats making very little headway and getting very tired. Then we saw a guy on a four wheeler driving around on the bank. We flagged him down and it was the ranch foreman. We ask him if we could come in the gate in the truck and winch the boat out of the creek that leads into the first lake. He agreed and took my cousin back to the car and in the mean time we pushed the boat which was dragging bottom badly even with nobody in it, back off the flat and into the deep part of the creek at the entrance of the first lake. My cousin got there with the truck and trailer about this time and we winched it out and drove home.
I was one happy dude to get out of that fix, because when a Norther blows the water out of the bays it's not a matter of the tide changing, its a matter of days before the wind switches back out of the south, if then, and blows enough tide back in to float anything.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
The short answer is ....No
The long answer is..... Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Damnit!
I will admit however that when one of the decoys on a short tether started drifting away down stream and we fired up the outboard to go retrieve it, when I came back past him I slowed down till we were barely on the plane and sent a rather large wake towards him that had him rocking perilously close to tipping out point.
I didn't quite catch what he yelled out due to the outboard noise..............I think he was admiring the duck boat enthusiastically judging by his hand gestures...........
I would show that photo to your elected official AND your conservation officer, light a fire.
Jerry
I will fear no evil: For I carry a .308 and not a .270
Wondered if anyone noticed the extra facial hair.........well spotted. Just about all the charter skippers in our 'area of operations' have beards...........I figured I should look the part as well. It will come off in summer .
Well, he did hold up a single finger when I almost tipped him out. I figured he was telling me that the boat was 'numero uno'..................
:uhm:
― Douglas Adams
Tanerite! :jester:
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Nope. But the decoy would definitely 'lose it's mind' when it contacted a solid object.
― Douglas Adams