Chessieguy sent me a PM earlier this week telling me he was going to be in town Friday & Saturday and wanted to know if I wanted to hook up for a hunt. So I checked with my wife and she wasn't supposed to be in town this weekend so we made plans to do a hunt on the bay.
I called Chessieguy on Thursday and talked about what was going on and if he would make a stop over to Artistic Wildlife Creations and pick up my pintail for me since it was in Campbell River.
Chessieguy was supposed to call me once he got back to his hotel room, it was now coming on 9:00pm and I hadn't heard from him and figured he'd forgotten to take my phone number so I gave him a call on his cell. He was still on the road and just going through Ladysmith. I said well you might as well crash here so he picked up a case of beer and a bottle of wine on the way in.
We had a few beers, talked about hunting and bored my wife to tears and we went to bed around midnight.
I've been sick since last Friday with a combination of flue, cold, and passing a kidney stone, yeah I know great combination.So I hadn't gotten anything organized so it was a mad run around in the morning.
Last week I had my 2 hp stolen from my driveway, it made my decision easy enough as I had burned out two seals in it and I only paid $300 for second hand and it was 30 years old. So in reality they helped me dispose of it.
So off to Cambodian tire I go on Thursday night and pick me up one of those nice Chinese models. It's a 4 stroke 2.6 hp APS outboard. I get it home, fill the oil up, top the gas and plop it in a bucket of water. Give it about 20 pulls and it starts up and runs quite well. I let it run in Neutral for 10 minutes or so and shut it down. I walk away from it for about an hour or so and go over and give it a pull and it starts effortless on the first pull. That was a nice surprise. So I shut it down, shut off the gass, take it out of the bucket and lay it on it's side as I want to make sure there is some gear oil in it as I can't find any info in the instruction manual if this is done at the manufacture. Nope no oil so Friday after work I grab the recommended gear oil.
Saturday morning the alarm goes off at 5:00am, I put Chessieguy on sandwich making duties as I scramble and try and organize my gear scattered around the house from last weekend. We make it to the garage where we put the oil in the gear box, load the motor in the truck followed by the boat, decoys, guns and dog and off we go.
We're only about 10 minutes late from what we planned to leave the house by. We get the boat in the water, I put the motor on and give it a quick try as no need in packing everything else in there if the motor wasn't working. I give it a pull and sure enough it fires up on the first pull, I shut it down and pack up the rest of the boat.
We're all packed up and in the boat and I start the motor, we get maybe 20 feet from the shore and it stalls. We get it back to shore and I must have pulled about 20 times with the choke out and it wasn't starting. I said to Chessieguy I don't think I flooded it I can't smell any gass. Then a light went on in my head, I can't smell any gas because I shut the gas off when I shut the motor down on Thursday night! I switched the gas on, pulled the choke out and it started on the second pull and we were finally off.
The manual recommended breaking in the motor slowly by only giving it 1/4 throttle for the first hour of the motor running. So we trudged along at a decent speed as it was a good amount of weight in that little boat with Chessieguy, myself, the dog, our gear, and 2 1/2 dozen dekes.
The tide was really high this morning and we pushed up a couple hundred birds where we planned to set up for the morning shoot. We pulled the boat ashore and started setting out the decoys as we were running a bit late leaving the house and not being familiar with the new outboard yet. We were pretty much set up on time and sat and waited for the birds to make their way back.
Then the continuous shooting began, unfortunately it wasn't coming from us but sky busters shooting anything that flew within a 100 yards of them. I'm not kidding we watched several flock of ducks that were at least 100 yards up and they shot at them. This went on all morning, and any bird that took interest in our spread ended up flaring when the yahoos started shooting at anything that flew by them.
We missed some easy opportunities as I was was waiting to let Chessieguy take the first shots and I think he was waiting for me to shoot first as well. I also forgot to bring the lucky duck stand and I think we would have done a lot better with it out as it was an overcast morning and it would have sucked those birds right in.
We had a teal land in the decoys and we decided to take it to give the dog something to do. We sat up and hollered at the duck to try and get him to jump, but it wouldn't fly off. Finally I got up and ran towards it at an angle so I wouldn't get in the firing lane and it finally lifted when I got about 10 yards from it. Chessieguy hit it but it drifted out about 50 yards before it hit the water, Marshall was on the chase. He was chasing it but not closing the gap any. I grab the motor and jump in the boat and off I go on the chase. By this time the duck has dove and Marshall has lost site of it and it's slowly making it's way away from him. I pick up the dog on the way out and now he's standing on the bow as we close the gap between us and the bird. We're about 100 yards off from the blind now and getting close and the bird dives again. Marshall sees it and jumps off the boat to retrieve it as I put the motor in neutral. He comes back with the bird in his mouth, I grab him by the scruff of the neck and bring him in the boat, mission accomplished.
We ended the day with one teal, Marshall was wet, cold, and cramped up in the back of the boat for 8 hours and only a teal to show for it. I have to admit he was pretty well behaved all day for the lack of retrieves he should have had. He did burn off a bit of restless energy at one point and took an interest in Chessieguy as he bent over to pick up some decoy.
Even with everything that didn't seem to go together that day it was still enjoyable, we saw birds, the dog spent the day outside doing what he loves, and I got to spend the day with another waterfowler who shares the passion.
The only bad outcome from yesterday was that Marshall developed limp tail, to much time spent cramped up in a cold wet boat I guess. I'll have to see what I can do to come up with a way to try and keep him dryer but it's hard to do with a dog that wants to follow you everywhere even if it's just to adjust the decoys in the water.
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Originally Posted by Chessieguy
