Get Ducks or Die Trying

Originally Posted at Good Hunt.

I’m not sure if I should blame Obama or Phil Robertson for the difficulty in finding duck hunting ammunition this year. Last year – almost to the day – I moaned about the shortage of waterfowl rounds in local stores, begging them to stock up for 2013-14. I said then not to blame Obama, but the beginning of 2013 witnessed an ammo grab unlike anything we’d witnessed since the ’90′s. Folks were literally snatching whatever they could off of shelves as panic spread that the President was going to restrict firearm ownership, a threat no one should have taken too seriously, in hindsight, since he actually put VP Biden in charge of the duty.

So while my plea may have been heard, it’s possible there was little retailers could do as manufacturers simply could not keep up with the demand. While the factories have been churning out the goods as fast as possible, supplies stretched pretty thin into this season. Even the big online stores were bare come mid-December. Unless a 10-gauge was your idea of a teal gun, options were slim.

All of this has coincided with an upturn in duck hunter numbers. I’d have to see Duck Stamp sales to be certain, but there’s been a palpable increase in people banging away at birds this year. Three years ago I argued that the popularity of duck hunting was about to explode. It wasn’t my best post – I mean, I quote Britney Spears; who does this? – but my theory has largely been correct, and that was without anticipating the arrival of Duck Dynasty, a phenomenon unlike any other to hit the hunting world, Swamp People included.

Assuming you’ve not been in a coma over the last 18 months, I’ll go ahead and skip over the rise and potential fall of that show, but will say that you’d think a major corporation like Wal-Mart could help out actual sportsmen and stock their shelves with whatever steel shot they could get their hands on given the program’s popularity and, presumably, studying hunting market trends. The Robertsons are so featured in your local Wally-World, it’s entirely conceivable that they constitute a branch of the Walton Family Tree. For Rudolph’s sake, cashiers wore Santa hats with duck bills on them throughout the holidays…but try finding a box of 12-gauge #4 steel anywhere in a Central Florida store location. The irony is not lost on me.

But some people have had them stockpiled – there’s been a lot of blasting this year on public waters.

My first inkling that we might be in trouble was for the September Teal STA draws in late-summer. These used to be a cinch to pull. When our group produced one permit out of a dozen of us applying, we surmised something was up. But, hey, it’s hot September in South Florida and online applications are easy to fill out. When rubber hits the road and skeeters, surely more than a few folks would pull up lame and leave available spots open for the few walk-in hunters willing to sacrifice a pint of blood and sweat for four teal.

Fast forward to Harris and I sprinting down a line of two dozen vehicles all there to register for a teaspoon of open spots. We entered our names at the last second and watched those openings fill with fellows sporting the Uncle Si beards and DD shirts. A whole horde of luckless hunters wheeled back home in the dark that morning.

It’s also possible I’m suffering the early onset of post-traumatic stress disorder after a hunt down at STA 1-W a few weekends ago. We got surrounded – as in we would have been the bulls-eye on a dart board – by other hunters taking it to the plug on ducks near and high, but mostly high. Anything slower than a teal had no chance of making it to us within AA-Gun range. I watched a hen shoveler tightly circle far overhead several times and had hopes she’d decoy. She finally circled too far and went totally vertical amid the shower of steel coming off the barrels of a group who was incapable of docking the duck calls in their shirt pockets and whose shot rained on us every time they pulled the trigger. They had pulled such shenanigans all morning. The shoveler was the lucky one.

But the STA’s have become well-known over the last five years as word has spread about their productivity. What really caught me off-guard has been the hunter activity along the West Coast this fall. What was once a lonely, often unproductive, game of merganser and diver hunting for those crazy enough to brave the salt spray, extreme tides and oyster bars has become a little crowded. Not, of course, by public lake standards, but never have I seen so many frond blinds on the tips of mangrove islands. And twice this year we’ve been cut off by newbies wailing on mallard calls hoping to turn passing mergies. Fun times.

This is all a double-edged sword. It’s wonderful that so many people have taken up this sport. Allies are being recruited even as we duel for the same hunting spots and curse over skyblasting. I don’t watch Duck Dynasty nor purchase their shirts, hats, band-aids, or board games, but I will confess to being overjoyed to see young people at ramps and check-in stations so intrigued with that crew that they’re willing to plunge into a duck blind on a cold morning, Jack.

For our group, the increase in hunters has caused us to spread out and try new places this year with a great deal of success, I might add. The duck hunting bubble will burst for a number of people as they spread their wings into other outdoor pursuits. For our group, not much slows us down when it comes to ducks. Except, of course, a lack of shotgun shells.

2012 Sea Duck Tournament

“Well, that’s about enough of this BS,” I said as I wrapped the magnum bluebill decoys and shot-put them towards the shore.

It’s not like I’ve not been skunked before. Even the recurring headaches from the rowdy night before and a pair of waders that let saltwater flow in and out like a bait bucket didn’t damper my spirits. Hell, it was a fun morning drawing into a beautiful evening, standing near a mangrove island staring out into the Gulf.

And we saw ducks – bluebills, mergansers, buffleheads, redheads, and scores of Distant Black Dot Ducks, but none wanted to work the decoys, and none happened by on accident. With sea duck hunting, it’s not all that much of a surprise. It’s often a crapshoot in every sense of the term.

No, what was more troubling were the boats to the South blasting away that led to the head-shaking. For the third straight year I was on the losing end of our Annual Sea Duck Tournament, the Booze & Blast. Got half of it right - other half pretty lame. I had visions of cupping redheads and the other boys high-fiving while my BPS gathered rust, cold barreled and fully shelved with ammo. It was too much to bear.

Cole’s party dusted the hooded mergansers in some secluded area he pointed us far away from. Sawyer’s team had a pretty stout lead after the morning hunt, and it sounded like he was padding his lead, as well. It’s the luck of the draw and all of that, but God is it frustrating to hear the reports echo across the bay while you try to will even one duck to err on the side of a trigger.

We gather every year off the Nature Coast for this event. Silly as it sounds, we were in far more productive locations earlier in the season hunting serious ducks and talking about this late-season gamut that leads to a bag heavy with mergansers. The lure of redheads is enticing, and a few died this trip - just not by my hand. The friends, the wives, partying the night before, the uniqueness of the hunt – it’s an annual draw.

The morning started well, though not without its share of difficulties. Drew captained his mudboat out the mouth of the Little Homosassa River. The tide was terribly low, even for the winter. If you’ve never launched out of this area, I wouldn’t in the dark. It’s treacherous, with oyster and limestone islands and their arms of bars and rocks ready to claim their next lower unit, prop or skeg even without the extreme winter tides. We scraped and banged, luckily without totally chewing up the vessel, out to Fun Island, a location eat up last year with waterfowl.

One redbreasted merganser quickly complied with the setup, PJ dumping him in the spread. And then the guns fell silent. As the morning wore on and dreams of country-fried steaks started taking hold, we lifted our gear and proceeded back to port. Unfortunately, there was not enough water to return that way. We pointed towards the Gulf to circle back into the Big River.

That ride was revealing. One, not a whole lot of ducks were rafted in the open water per usual for this time of year. With a mild, mild winter, it just didn’t seem many ducks got down here, or perhaps kept pushing farther south, as we’d heard good reports of bluebills towards Tampa. But, we’d also heard tales of non-mergie divers towards Crystal River.

That afternoon we towed the boats north. A man at the ramp said there were a few redheads around but not in any large groups. But I didn’t pay much attention to him – I was more focused on the two chaps wanting to launch their 24-foot wooden outboard into this maze of rocks and crags. They reminded me of the two fellows from “Jaws” who used a wife’s roast to try and catch the shark – they had an inkling of a plan, but no solid idea of what they were getting into, and just may have to swim back to safety if things went wrong.

So Cole and Sawyer hunted south, and we elected to hunt near Crystal River. If there’s one tip I can offer about this style of hunting it is this: Don’t sea duck hunt with me. I am an albatross. White pelicans hooted and grunted behind our island, and cormorants were steadily pouring over. But the ducks gave us nothing to work with. With about an 1 ½ of daylight remaining, we picked up to try another island, scattering a couple healthy flocks of bluebills and mergansers.

I expected the bluebills to return, as they are wont to do. But, a fishing boat rode in and whooped and hollered as the sounds of distant gun blasts tore at my nerves. Enough was enough. And we couldn't wait out last shooting light with the tide now steadily rushing west. Sawyer’s team gathered the championship for the weekend, actually getting out of bed to hunt Sunday while the rest of us slept in. And duck season was over for me.

As always, we’re planning for next year. We were late with a logo for the tournament shirts but should have that ready for 2013. And we’ve commissioned a trophy to be fashioned with a redbreasted merganser standing on an Evan Williams bottle to pass around to the winner in the years to come like the Stanley Cup. It’s gonna be cool. Hope to win it one year and cover myself in glory.

If anyone lets me board their boat again.