Monday, September 22, 2008

Scouting For Wood Ducks

Yes, folks this is the face of a man at the end of his wits and buried up to his armpits in a swampy foul smelling marsh death trap. You may wonder how I allowed myself to come to this unfortunate end point and let me tell you that my near death experience was not in vain. Like all good hunters I was simply practicing the fine art of "scouting". On this particular outing I was checking out a particularly promising marsh that had me "ducking" (Pardon the waterfowl humor) in the canoe to avoid being hit in the head with fleeing Wood Ducks. Upon finding a great set-up point deep in the marsh I was more than a bit disappointed that our recent high rainfall had severely flooded an otherwise perfect hunting location.

Despite my better judgement (a common error I make quite frequently) I decided to "go for it" and upon setting foot out of the canoe was immediately up to my armpits and wishing that I had decided to put on my life jacket. With considerable effort I managed to pull myself free and noted that I had stepped square into a bottomless murky hole in the marsh mud. One step to either side and I would have remained dry and avoided the near death experience. Well, after scraping off the foul smelling stench of death I managed to construct a rough blind using old decking planks and some of the surrounding flora. While not an optimal location it should allow me to at least get to the woodies and only time will tell if my scouting pays dividends.

Oh, I almost forgot take a look at these shots of pitcher plants I saw in the marsh!

11 comments:

  1. Ah the price one must pay to show the Downeast Duck Hunter a good time, no pressure buddy, no pressure!!!

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  2. I'm probably not suppose to be laughing at your experiece ;)

    Hey, at least you saw the pitcher plants... very cool!!!! And the weather was beautiful!!!!

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  3. Ha ha, classic! Our rule of thumb down here is "no matter how bad it is in the boat, it's worse outside the boat."

    I was working on a road project in the southern NJ marshes several years ago and the geotech borings came back at one point, showing that the soft mud extended down to 60 feet below sea level. Bad times!

    Stay in the boat!

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  4. That is an unfortunate experience and I apologize for laughing while reading about it.

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  5. Hey Bro nice didn't know you had a hunting blog going pretty sweet.
    -Yoda

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  6. All, glad I was able to elicit a laugh or two . . . the fun and challenging part about writing is trying to "create" an article or story that is informative and interesting for the reader. Most of the time this is easier said than done! Thanks again for the comments!

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  7. Yoda, nice to see you found the blog! Welcome aboard!

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  8. ST, "no matter how bad it is in the boat, it's worse outside the boat." That statement is GOLD! LOL!

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  9. I'm just going to sit here, be glad it wasn't me, and agree with SAHM *laughing*.

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  10. We put up a woody duck nesting box 2 seasons ago..hard to keep the starlings out..but I love them and can't imagine hunting one...

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  11. The boys and I will certainly enjoy watching the antics that occur in the wood duck nesting box that we put up this winter season as well. I feel differently about hunting them however. I spend hours planting, weeding, fertilizing and nurturing my garden and receive great enjoyment in watching it grow BUT at the end of the season, I don't think twice about yanking all of the plants and eating them. I feel the same way about the wood duck nesting box, it will be fun to watch eggs transform into hatchlings and eventually adults, in the end "planting" a whole new generation of edibles for me to enjoy harvesting.

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