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mazz and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day of hunting

mazzgolf

By mazzgolf
in Waterfowl Hunting

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mazzgolf 9 pointer

mazzgolf

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You know how they say "the worst day hunting is still better than the best day at work.?" I found out today that that is a lie.

Let's see. Walking to the waterfowl blind in the dark with a buddy, I grab a fallen tree to step over it - and I feel something weird in my hands. Awesome - I just wrapped my hand around a nice fat poison ivy vine. :eek: The whole rest of the day I'm worried about what I touch -- "don't scratch your face! don't rub your hands! Will my gun have poison ivy oil all over it?" As I'm walking in, I'm rubbing my hand in the dirt, on leaves, on grass, anything to try to rub the oil off.  Water is freezing, but I have to dip my hand in to hopefully wash off the oil.

My day was just getting started.

It's high tide and the water is still coming in. Easily five feet deep and getting deeper. Hmmm... too deep - we can't walk the decoys out too far, so we just put them about 10 yards out. If I was a duck, even I'd laugh at the spread.

My buddy trips in the water, floods his waders. I feel sorry for him, but inside I'm saying "glad it wasn't me." (you can guess what happened later).

Debris and junk ripping in with the tide. Takes a couple decoys with it. Bye, bye decoys - hopefully we'll see you again when the tide reverses in a few hours. :whatever:

Hear TONS of shooting to our south about a 1/4 mile away. I mean, a war is breaking out. Us? The whole morning, we get a shot at ... two. Just out of range for me - my buddy shoots one though. He sends the dog out. Dog catches the rigging of two of the decoys and drags them across to the other side. Awesome. Bye bye decoys - maybe if the tide goes out enough in 4 hours we can walk across to get you. :whatever:

After a couple hours, we've had enough. It's slack tide, just started to turn. We figure the first couple dekes are lost, but I can see the ones across the water the dog dragged.

"I can get them!! It's easy!! Don't worry!!" I take a few steps, I immediately get tangled in our other dekes' rigging. All wrapped around my legs and each other. As I'm trying to get untangled, I'm watching debris start taking those dekes I want to retrieve away in the other direction. Finally get untangled, and I rush to get across the water.

I can't get them, it isn't easy, it's time to worry. Take a step into a hole - uhhhhh.... it's really deep here. Water starts flooding the waders - I start to float... I walk backwards (well, I think you'd call it swimming at this point), step on something, fall backwards, and I'm now a water balloon. Water is cold in December, in case you didn't know.

Quickly rush to the bank, get tangled up again in more dekes on the way. Untangle myself, take off my waders to dump out the water.

"Can we go home now?"

Silver lining - two guys in a boat were going by at this point. We ask if they can get our two dekes across the way, they say sure. They then say, "We passed a couple other dekes down the way - I guess they are yours, too - you want us to get them?" .... to which we say, "Um... yes, please!" So it wasn't a complete loss, we got all our dekes back - the day was salvaged thanks to fellow waterfowlers!

The walk back to the truck was uneventful - I consider it a minor miracle I didn't break an ankle or something on the way back, which I was half expecting.

Can't wait to get back to work Monday. :nerd:

So, how was your day? :popcorn:

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mazzgolf 9 pointer

mazzgolf

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23 minutes ago, Live to Hunt said:

If at any point you laughed it was better then work. Thanks for sharing your story 

 

17 minutes ago, maximus66 said:

you and your friend have something to laugh about

We did laugh about it, but only after getting ready to start our walk back out when we figured we were kinda safe from having more stupid stuff happen to us :)

    "I can't believe more people don't want to hunt ducks! What's not to like?" :rofl: 

 

3 minutes ago, The Buschman said:

hope the poison ivy does not break out!

First thing I did when I walked into the house was get to the bathroom and scrub my hands with Technu - didn't even get out of my wet clothes :) I had poison ivy before, needed to go to the doctor's and get that steroid stuff... I don't want that ever again!

 

2 minutes ago, rgw said:

your very lucky its been warm

No lie! It was warm relatively speaking today. I joke the water was cold (and it was), but I can only imagine what "real" cold water feels like in January when you are hunting between ice flows.

I learned some valuable lessons today. :D 

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Bucndoe 8 pointer

Bucndoe

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2 hours ago, mazzgolf said:

You know how they say "the worst day hunting is still better than the best day at work.?" I found out today that that is a lie.

Let's see. Walking to the waterfowl blind in the dark with a buddy, I grab a fallen tree to step over it - and I feel something weird in my hands. Awesome - I just wrapped my hand around a nice fat poison ivy vine. :eek: The whole rest of the day I'm worried about what I touch -- "don't scratch your face! don't rub your hands! Will my gun have poison ivy oil all over it?" As I'm walking in, I'm rubbing my hand in the dirt, on leaves, on grass, anything to try to rub the oil off.  Water is freezing, but I have to dip my hand in to hopefully wash off the oil.

My day was just getting started.

It's high tide and the water is still coming in. Easily five feet deep and getting deeper. Hmmm... too deep - we can't walk the decoys out too far, so we just put them about 10 yards out. If I was a duck, even I'd laugh at the spread.

My buddy trips in the water, floods his waders. I feel sorry for him, but inside I'm saying "glad it wasn't me." (you can guess what happened later).

Debris and junk ripping in with the tide. Takes a couple decoys with it. Bye, bye decoys - hopefully we'll see you again when the tide reverses in a few hours. :whatever:

Hear TONS of shooting to our south about a 1/4 mile away. I mean, a war is breaking out. Us? The whole morning, we get a shot at ... two. Just out of range for me - my buddy shoots one though. He sends the dog out. Dog catches the rigging of two of the decoys and drags them across to the other side. Awesome. Bye bye decoys - maybe if the tide goes out enough in 4 hours we can walk across to get you. :whatever:

After a couple hours, we've had enough. It's slack tide, just started to turn. We figure the first couple dekes are lost, but I can see the ones across the water the dog dragged.

"I can get them!! It's easy!! Don't worry!!" I take a few steps, I immediately get tangled in our other dekes' rigging. All wrapped around my legs and each other. As I'm trying to get untangled, I'm watching debris start taking those dekes I want to retrieve away in the other direction. Finally get untangled, and I rush to get across the water.

I can't get them, it isn't easy, it's time to worry. Take a step into a hole - uhhhhh.... it's really deep here. Water starts flooding the waders - I start to float... I walk backwards (well, I think you'd call it swimming at this point), step on something, fall backwards, and I'm now a water balloon. Water is cold in December, in case you didn't know.

Quickly rush to the bank, get tangled up again in more dekes on the way. Untangle myself, take off my waders to dump out the water.

"Can we go home now?"

Silver lining - two guys in a boat were going by at this point. We ask if they can get our two dekes across the way, they say sure. They then say, "We passed a couple other dekes down the way - I guess they are yours, too - you want us to get them?" .... to which we say, "Um... yes, please!" So it wasn't a complete loss, we got all our dekes back - the day was salvaged thanks to fellow waterfowlers!

The walk back to the truck was uneventful - I consider it a minor miracle I didn't break an ankle or something on the way back, which I was half expecting.

Can't wait to get back to work Monday. :nerd:

So, how was your day? :popcorn:

No deer hunting on Monday for you ? Filling a tag makes a lot of things better

There is nothing more intolerant than a liberal preaching tolerance 

God gives the toughest battles to his strongest soldiers

"Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy."

 

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