Mental health day on the water
Wednesday after work I started organizing my decoys and gear etc. and got an early night’s sleep. I slept in to 7am made some breakfast as I knew it could possibly be a long day. Legal time that day was 5:03PM. I made some tea and a sandwich to go, went out and tried the motor in the morning and it flashed up no problem, loaded up the truck, collected the dog and we were heading for the boat ramp around 9:15am.
Beautiful morning, practically no wind to speak of, and the tide would have just started to recede a little. I was optimistic that today was going to be a good day after last week. I adjusted my decoy spread to include 11 teal decoys as I saw a lot of teal last week. I also took my 18 Widgeon Decoys, 20 Mallard decoys, and 6 pintail decoys with me. I had a full load this morning and it took some time to organize the boat with all my gear as well as the dog. It felt like the opening day of lobster season if anyone on the east coast is reading this, they will get the analogy.
I get on my way and make it about 100 yards from the launch and the motor sputters and dies. I grab my spare kayak paddle I had to use because the dog tossed my good one out of my boat a few weeks back when I was picking up my decoys and didn’t notice until I was back to the boat launch that it was missing “sign”. I paddle myself and all my kit back to the boat launch. I change out the spark plug give the motor a pull and it flashes back up. I think good that fixed the problem. We push back off the boat launch and start heading back out. This time I’m out about 200 yards and the motor starts to sputter like its starving for gas so I pull the choke little and it’s running better. When I clear the pier, the motor dies. My options are turn around and paddle back 300 yards to the boat launch or carry on to where I want to position myself which is close to 2 km away and hope the heat of the day resolves the issue with the motor for the trip back. It’s a beautiful day, the sun is out, there is no wind, and I’ve already taken the day off work and I really don’t want to waste the day sulking at home because I didn’t go hunting so I continue on to where I want to set up.
The boat doesn’t paddle well, It’s a flat bottom boat that’s 4 feet wide at its widest point and 14 feet long. I’m pushing the max limit of the boat which is 500 lbs and I’m using a kayak paddle designed for a small inflatable boat. I left the boat launch around 9:30am and now I have my decoy rig set out and it’s 11:49 am. Good thing I had packed a bologna sandwich and a thermos of tea this morning because I was so hungry after that paddle across the bay.
I feed the dog some kibble and ate my sandwich with a cup of tea. I remove my jacket as all the paddling with the crappy kayak paddle had sent water down my sleeves and had soaked my jacket. I was lucky it was warm enough I was comfortable just sitting in a merino camo firslite top. It was wet on the arm sleeves but dried out fairly quick in the sun.
First ducks to check out the spread was a flock of teal who showed up about an hour after setting up, I saw 3 of then fly by but they didn’t land. I thought that was unusual from last week when I had a hard time keeping them out of my spread. I sat up so I could see if everything was ok in the decoy spread as I was surprised the teal hadn’t dropped in. The I noticed one of the decoys moving its head. I hadn’t noticed the drake teal landing in the decoy spread. I shoulder the gun, the teal launches itself in the air, I pull the trigger and the bird hits the water. The dog, who was ecstatic to chase something after the extended boat paddle to get there, is more than eager to do this retrieve. The teal can’t fly but it can still dive and gave the dog a few minutes of exercise before the dog managed to snag the teal. Skadi swims in with it then spits it once she's on solid ground to shake herself off and the teal takes off on the run for the water again. There is no chance of me catching this little rocket so I send the dog back after it making sure this time she delivers it to hand.So we are on the board, it’s not a skunk of a day and what a beautiful drake it is.
It’s now 12:25 PM and I’m thinking to myself I’ll give it until 3:00PM before I try the motor and start picking up if it won’t start again to give myself enough time to paddle cross the Estuary before dark.
The Extra mallard decoys seem to be doing the trick today. I call in some hens who swim around the decoys quacking back at my calls, eventually a drake mallard comes in to join them. I crumple the drake into the decoys and the hen flies off unharmed.
Another half hour or so passed by and a pair of mallards comes into the spread. I wait for the drake and the hen to get a bit of distance between each other as I don’t want to accidentally tag the hen in the process. I get up to shoot, wait for the drake to jump and hit him on his way up. Dog heads out and is happy as can be and brings it right back to me this time to tuck away with the teal and we get back hidden.
Maybe 20 minutes later I have a pair of widgeon zig zagging coming in from the right of the spread, just as I’m pull the trigger the hen swings out in front of the drake and I end up taking the hen widgeon down instead of the drake. Well, there goes my goal of only shooting drakes today. I send the dog out to retrieve the widgeon and when she was on her way back a trio of Mallards flies over the decoys and circles over the blind. I pick out a drake and pull the trigger. Things are starting to speed up, the dog hasn’t completed a retrieve and we have another bird on the ground. I walk towards her grab the widgeon and line her up on the shoreline where the drake mallard had fallen. She found it easily and was stone dead.
No sooner then we get settled back in another 3 mallards come circle the spread. The dog is watching the birds over the decoys as I focus on a drake that is almost over head to my left. I shoulder the gun, pull the trigger and hammered that poor bird. It stops moving in the air and just drops out of the sky. Dog is still focused on the decoys and we have a dead bird maybe 20 yards to the left. I line her up for a blind retrieve and cast her off. She pretty much stumbles on it and brings it back. As soon as I flipped it over and had a look at the breast, I knew this on had been peppered. We get settled, I offer the dog some water and I pour myself another cup of tea. It’s now close to two and we have 5 birds in hand I’m starting to think that maybe I can still limit out this afternoon if this momentum keeps up.
I was preoccupied fiddling around with my thermos and the dogs water dish when I heard a splashing in the decoys, I poke my head up and scan the decoys to see what came in and it’s a pair of widgeons. Learning from tagging the hen in the last pair that came in I wait until there is some space between the drake and the hen before I shoulder to shoot. The drake jumps and I put the bead just over his head as he’s gaining altitude and pull the trigger dropping him back to the water. I send the dog out for the retrieve.
Maybe 10 minutes later I have a drake mallard back paddling, landing gear out when I smack him down to the water. He can’t fly but he’s still got lots of life to him and 30 yards out. I rush after him closing the distance as much as I could to try and finish him off. Dog is swimming beside me but not going after the bird. It took another 3 shots on the water before his head went down in the water. Once I knew he wasn’t going anywhere I sent the dog in for the retrieve.
We get settled back in and hadn’t caught our breath when another drake mallard was circling the spread. I tagged him twice over the decoys but he still managed to fly off where he eventually landed maybe 75 yards out. I thought crap this is going to suck trying to chase a cripple with no motor but I knew I hit him twice maybe he will bleed. I didn’t want to send the dog out at this point as I didn’t want him to chase him further out so I started prepping the boat for a chase and when I looked back up the duck had expired and was lying flat out on the water. I cast the dog out but she was a little confused because she didn’t see the bird. I waded out as much as I could so that she wouldn’t think the bird was back in the decoy spread and had to cast her out a second time as she stopped short and was turning around. On the second cast she finally caught a glimpse of the bird and made the retrieve.
It’s now 2:58PM and I’m limited out. I unload my shotgun and head back to the boat and start collecting all the decoys and methodically placing them so that the weight is better distributed and balanced for the paddle out as again the motor won’t run for me. Take a picture of the dog with her limit of birds and take a drink of water before I make the trip back to the boat launch.
There is still no wind and I’m motivated to get back before dark and I leave the shore at 3:52 PM after I’m all packed up and dog is loaded into the boat. We hit the boat launch at 4:47PM, legal time I believe was 5:03PM so it was coming on dark by the time I paddled up to the boat launch. It took 55 minutes of continuous paddling and I’ll tell you my fingers were frozen and I almost couldn’t stand up by the time I got to the boat launch. I was walking like a crab hunched over for a while until I could unbend my knees. Walked over to the truck got the dog in and put the heat on. About 10 minutes later I had feeling again enough to sort all my gear and load the boat back into the truck. It had to be one of the most tiring days out on the bay hunting but probably one of the more memorable ones. Whoever tells you that duck hunting is a lazy man’s sport hasn’t been hunting with me lol.
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Originally Posted by HarryToolips
