Another day another adventure
Well I went out again this week thinking that I should have shaken off most of the cobwebs by now being the third time out in 3 weeks. My biggest fear was that I would stress myself out and increase my blood pressure( it was 194/128 on Tuesday). I'm on blood pressure meds now and it's been bouncing around but never in the normal range yet.
So I start off my morning and go through the routine pack up the boat, put the paddle and the gun in the truck, shells etc. Just before I start getting dressed in my waders etc I figured I should test the motor now before I get down to the boat launch. Try to pull it multiple times and just sputter. It did snow the day before and there was still ice in the bucket and I thought maybe some ice built up inside the motor or something is was -3 overnight. I was just about to call off the hunt when one of my hunting buddies texted me and asked how it was and I explained I"m still in my driveway trying to get the motor to start and explained what it was doing. He asked if I pulled the plug yet to see if it's fouled. I said no I"ll check that now.
So I pull the plug it didn't look dirty or super wet but I wiped it off and pulled the cord on the motor to try and clear out any excess gas that may have been in there. Put the plug back in and pushed the plug wire back on as deep as I could possibly get it and within two pulls it flashes up. My guess is the plug wire wasn't making good enough contact with the spark plug. I shut the motor off, place it in the truck, go get dressed and make my way to the boat launch.
It's now 3:00 PM, I launch and make my way to where I want to layout for the remainder of the day and place the decoys out trying to keep the dog in the boat so she's not swimming the entire time and shivering for the rest of the afternoon laying in the boat.
First duck into the spread is a drake mallard, I sit up and the duck is heading straight towards me and he banks to the right when he's maybe 10 yards away, it's a quick instinctive swing and a pull of the trigger and the duck folds up and falls in the water. I send the dog out to fetch it up as I crawl out of the boat to re-adjust the boat as the tide is slowly dropping and I have to reposition the boat so it's not on an angle. I grab the duck place it in the boat. get the dog back into her position and settle back in.
Maybe another half hour has passed when a pair of widgeon lands into the decoys. they are tight maybe 15 yards if not closer. I sit up shoulder and aim the gun and wait for the birds to jump. My focus is on the plumed out drake. On the jump I miss the first shot, focus a little better on my lead and drop him on the second shot. I send the dog out but he's not seeing the duck or smelling him so I get out of the boat and call the dog back over so I can line him up with the bird. I cast her and she now sees the drake and heads out to retrieve the duck. I'm fiddling around the boat bend over to toss the duck in and I hear something hit the water. I look over and my gun is still on the boat no sure what that was but didn't think much of it and got the dog situated and got into the boat.
About 30 minutes later another hen widgeon comes into the spread. I sit up, take aim, shoot the duck falls into the water. I send the dog and decide I should check on my phone to make sure when legal time was as it's 5:45pm. I start checking all my pockets, nothing, check my hunting bag, nothing. WTF, I start looking at the bottom of the boat incase it sld off my lap or off my gear back while I was laid out but nowhere to be found. The panic set in when I remembered the plop in the water about a half hour earlier. I remove my jacket as I'm wearing a T-shirt underneath and start feeling along the boats edge where I was standing when I head something hit the water. the water was up to my elbow as I was feeling the bottom with my hand when I finally felt it. it was half buried in the mud I must have stepped on it when I was walking alongside the boat. 
I pull it out of the water expecting the worst and to my amazement it was still on 
. How it survived for half an hour in salt water I have no idea but I"m glad it did. I flushed it with my drinking water to try and get as much salt water out of it and would give it a better flushing when I got home.
We get set back up to try and take advantage of the evening flight but I decide to call the hunt when I notice the boat is now high and dry and the nearest water is 30 feet away. The boat is only about 100 llbs plus my gear but the suction you get on the bottom of an almost flat boat on wet mud is unreal. I wanted to get the boat floating again before I even consider collecting all my decoys. Once I hit the water I get the dog into the boat and walk it out ankle deep before I drop the anchor and start collecting my decoy. I turn around and the dog is trying to get out of the boat almost nocking my paddle into the water. I told her to stay and carried on collecting the 3 1/2 dozen decoys as we were losing daylight and the tide was dropping. I do a second look and yup i got all the decoys even the ones that were beached at that point.
I'm walking the boat with my headlamp on as it's still too shallow to run the motor. Finally I'm about 200 yards from the shoreline and shin deep of water. Deep enough to go slow in this little boat. I'm getting close to the boat launch and I reach over to grab my paddle and realize I no longer have it. It must have fallen when the dog was in the boat and I was collecting my decoy. After what happened the first trip out I wasn't going back in the dark looking for my paddle without a paddle in the boat. I have a spare paddle at home it's not worth risking my life over.
I get home, let the dog out of the truck place the ducks in the fridge to cool down while I grab something to eat and catch my breath. I"m sitting on the couch half asleep at this time and decide to check my blood pressure again. It was 167 /105 in the morning when I got up and it was now sitting at 102/67 in the evening after all the trudging around in my waders and dragging all my gear and boat around. Looks like I need to do more hunting if I want to keep my blood pressure down.
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Originally Posted by Stone Sheep Steve
