Duck hunting report...Day one

[Orchidman]

BH and I headed up to launch our boats arriving around 2.30 at Marks. Called in to give him a damn good listening to before launching our boats into the river. BH runs an 8 deg 12’6” aluminium hull with a short shaft 25hp Yamaha…My aluminium hull is 13’9” with an 18 deg V and runs a 30hp Yamaha long shaft…..On paper they are pretty evenly matched for top speed. But every year since we have shot together I always had an edge ( don’t tell him that a longer narrower boat beats a shorter wider boat under most circumstances)
When BH saw the amount of gear I had loaded, he made his brags that he would finally be faster…HA!
Here is a pic of my boat and the gear…

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So we launched at the ramp and slowly ran down the river warming the motors up. On the basis that if you have 2 guys in 2 motorised transports it is inevitable that they will race….. we lined up alongside each other and at Bh’s signal we opened the throttles. I got the hole shot and took the lead as we got up on the plane……then I closed the throttle slightly and allowed him to creep up alongside and edge ahead by about 20 m……The grin on his face was priceless when he took the lead……after about 200m I gradually opened the throttle and pulled alongside and watched his grin start fading… after sitting alongside for about a minute I firewalled the throttle and drove past him laughing like hell while he gave me the ‘bird’…..By the time we got to where we would go our own ways, I had a lead of about 400m…..Score 1 for the old guy!
We stopped and had a final conference re radio scheds etc and I asked him if he was comfortable that he could get into his spot taking into account the state of the tide. He said yes and opened the throttle and headed off….after 300m he came to an abrupt halt on the top of a mud bank, ended up lifting his outboard and broke out a paddle…… I rolled a smoke, checked my bearings and marks then opened the throttle and swept past him about 40 m away doing approx 25knots laughing my head off at his upraised fist… By lining up various marks I navigated my way into the channel that led to my spot and arrived to find that where I wanted to put the boat was still high and dry….Once again, experience beats the brashness of youth. ( Our age difference is only 5 yrs btw)
I figured I might as well set the decoys up so spent 30 mins getting them looking natural while the tide continued to rise.
I knew it would be dark soon and didn’t want to wait so I backed off about 60m opened the throttle, aimed at a point between 2 big mangroves and held on……the boat slid up the metre high mud bank as I pulled the kill switch and across 20 metres of soft mud between the 2 trees and stopped exactly where I planned.
From where I stopped I could still see BH paddling his way across the shallow water towards his spot. ……Score 2 for the old guy!

Got the new shelter set up and the bunk assembled, then cooked venison steak, fried potatoes, onions and mushrooms and had dinner.
Here is a pic of the shelter and bunk etc...

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By the time I had cleaned up the boat was floating so after tying it up I crawled into my sleeping bag and watched a Super twelve Rugby game on my mob. As I settled down to sleep, I noticed the boat was rocking in an exaggerated/unusual way every time I moved. A quick inspection showed water under the floorboards. I knew the boat had a small leak which is why I fitted a second 1000gph bilge pump 2 days before. Hit the switch and the pump ran for about 2 1/2 minutes before sucking air. Hmmm, that worked out at around 30+ gallons of water….thats not good!
Set my internal clock to wake up every 2 hrs and dropped off to sleep. During the night I would wake up and check how much water was in the boat by the simple expedience of sticking my forefinger into a cutout hole in the floorboards ….when my finger came out wet I would hit the switch and pump it out. Despite the water problem I slept well waking up at 5am…
Bacon, eggs and cheese toasted sandwiches for breakfast then it was time to take down the shelter and camo up the boat……by 6.30am ( legal shooting time) I was all set with the boat backed up between two big mangroves and a good field of view/fire.
Here is a pic of the view I had..

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Note the mallard drake about to land in the centre of the pic.....
and here he is in a mad panic to get away......

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Both pics were taken after I had limited out....

The first bird arrived, a fat mallard drake that screamed over the decoys like a jet on a strafing run and I swung through it and slapped the trigger… missed….sped the swing up and slapped the trigger again and he crumpled drt. 1 down 7 to go…..10 minutes later 3 birds arrived with a hiss and a roar and did the same thing and 3 shots later I had 4 birds down. Retrieved them using the boat, reset and waited for the next flight…..15 mins later a group of 7 flew past so I spent 5 minutes on the call while they circled warily out of range until they finally committed to land. As they flared over the decoys I dropped the lead drake and the 1187 locked up with the breech jammed open.
Started to do a quick field strip and wanted to get the live shells out while I sorted the problem…..Took the barrel and fore end off and the mag spring, follower and mag plug launched themselves over the side into the water which was about 6’ deep. Sailors language hastened their departure into the depths!
Threw the now partially disassembled gun into its rifle bag to deal with later and dragged out my spare 1187……loaded it with 3 rounds just in time to call 2 birds in and dropped them both.
By 7.55am I had my limit. Plan B ( mentioned in my previous post about Its that time of year) didn’t come into play so I decided to stay put. For the last 3 birds the fog had rolled in and visibility was down to just on 30m...made for interesting shooting cos I could hear the birds calling but couldnt see them until they were over the dekes.....the last 3 birds were snap shots.
Here is a pic taken as the fog was lifting...

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While the tide was still in I had birds following their flight line onto the harbour so I practiced calling and managed to get about 80% into the decoys……at one stage I had 18 birds swimming around within 25m of the camoed boat.
A mob of about 150 Giant Canada geese came through after the water had gone and passed about 100m to my right. Unfortunately a straggler strayed within range and I dropped it on my second shot. It came down about 80m behind me in an open area of soft mud, Putting my chest waders on I went for a walk to retrieve it. Got to the edge of the mangroves behind me and took 3 steps into the soft mud……ended up in mud to the top of my thighs and got stuck. Took me 10 minutes to work myself free and get back to firmer ground. I don’t like leaving game and pondered the problem.
This is where experience came in. I saw that it had crashed next to a small drain about 18” wide that was draining out from the mangroves about 100 m away. I knew that where these little drains run, the mud was a lot harder, so I walked through the trees to where it started and tested my theory. Yep, I only went up to my knees!
It took me another 25 mins of following the meandering drain till I got within reach of the goose and then 35 more mins to get back to the boat.
On my way back I found the mag spring and follower from the 1187.
Didn’t want to get into the boat with mud all over my waders so I disconnected the outlet from the bilge pump and used the water in the boat to wash my waders down. Took a few pics of birds flying past while I had a late lunch then settled in for a nap.

Watched the sun go down and took some more pics, then set up the shelter and bunk. Had a late dinner then was rocked to sleep by the boat as the tide was back.
At about 11pm I fell out of my bunk as the boat rolled onto its side………………the only problem with a deep v is that when it sits on the mud it can fall onto one side of the V. Tried propping myself up but kept falling off the bunk. I caved in to the inevitable and after 30 mins of rearranging the boat I had moved the bunk from the starboard side to the port side. Now gravity held me in place and I went back to sleep.
Day 2 details will be posted up in the next few days.

[Chiro1989]

Typical day hunting. Sounds like fun.

[GrapeApe]

Sounds like a good time. Also an enjoyable read, as usual.

[Diver43]

Good times. Thanks for sharing the experience

[Jayhawker]

Sounds like duck hunting to me...

[NuttyNed]

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