Feel free to add to this thread if you like, it's sort of a Brant season report, with a bit of a story of my own adventure.
I got invited out on a Brant hunt with one of the old school Brant guys this week. We made it out for three days. The first day we had a couple nice flocks come in. My first shot is a misfire. Well that just rattles you and you don't know what is going on. I reloaded but it was too late. My partner managed one from that set.
The sea was angry at me for missing. Soon the medium wind turned into a full force gale wind. The waves picked up and I wondered if this was safe. You see, I've never been in a half sank bath tub on the ocean before, waves were coming over the side and the 5 lines of decoys were starting to tangle. I looked Captain Jack in the eye and he grabbed the anchor. Whew! I thought, he's finally afraid too, and we're going to call it and head in. Finally the anchor is out of the water and he throws it back in! Just had to reposition Dave! Well the waves are large and seeming to get bigger. We're very wet and the tops of the waves are being ripped off by the howling wind. Now, I'm an adrenaline junkie, I put myself into positions to try to get my body to react with fear and create adrenalin. So I'm not afraid of a lot. My biggest fear though is dying duck hunting. I would be that idiot in the paper people would read about. I can see the headlines now. "IDIOT DIES WHILE TRYING TO KILL A GOOSE!" There is no glory dying while waterfowling. You just look a fool. Everyone else had gone in, and we were the only boat out there. Finally we abandoned the deeks and motored to shore. We stayed on shore for an hour as the tide fell. Luckily there was a break in the weather and we made it out to pick up the deeks.
The next two days were rough, calm, windy, rainy, torrential down pour, sunny, but mostly cool and wavey. We managed to get out limits of 2 birds and we even managed to get my first BC snows! They just flew over the wrong place at the wrong time.
I I learned a lot and had a blast for some reason. I can't really say why it was great, but it was. Shooting from a wavey bathtub is a challenge and I give props to all the guys who do this hunt. It's definitely not for everyone, and is quite expensive to get in to doing it. Boat, 100 decoys, rust proof gun, anchors and clips and long lines, all for 2 birds with a 10 day season. It is a hard one to justify.
If you're reading this though Jack, thanks for taking me out, it was my favorite waterfowling to date.
Originally Posted by hunter1947
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