Hunting will make you do STUPID things!

[g8rvet]

Duck:  Set out one evening on our local reservoir for a woodie hunt.  Cold, but Florida cold, not northern cold (I hunt Canada, so I do know cold).  It was blowing pretty good, but my brother and I said, the wind always lays down at dark (WTH?  Don't know why we said or even thought that).  Did kill our ducks in a little protected cove.  Got back out to the main lake, major whitecaps. Blowing straight out of the east, our little boat with a 5hp Go Devil looked like the boat on Perfect Storm.  To top it off, this lake is filled with stumps, some under the water and some visible.  It was all it could do to keep nose in the wind, we swore they were 3 footers, but were probably real 2 footers.  Which is a lot in 14-48 jon. 

Redfish: Set out on a cold spring morning to hit a spot we usually drive to and wade in, but the road was closed. We took our 18 foot Carolina Skiff and set out with a following sea.  Big rollers, but not terrible.  Start fishing in a little cove and the wind just picked up and picked up.  Finally tell my nephew it is time to  leave.  As we break out into the open water, it has gotten very snotty in the bay.  Climb wave, stuff bow, face full of cold saltwater, repeat. I was never scared of dying, but I was worried about losing my boat.  We were 1/4 mile off the island and the waves were blowing in to it, we could have swam to shore, but it was serious 3+ foot waves, stacked in the wind. 

Ducks:  Proceeded out to a WMA in MS.  Breaking ice.  As I step out of the little Otter style boat, I realize my waders are leaking.  No sweat, the water will warm up in my neoprenes, like a wetsuit.  Umm, yeah, not so  much.  After a couple of hours, I went back to the truck and left the boat for my brother to bring in - I walked out the levees.  By the time I got to the truck my foot was numb-like no feeling numb.  Very scary to this Florida boy.  It was white and had no feeling.  I was cold sensitive on that foot for several years after. 

Ducks:  had a great hunt, in the same little boat as before, different lake.  A group next to us started picking up their decoys like their britches were on fire and their arses were catching.  As they came by us, they said there was a storm cell on the way to us with 45 mph winds and heavy rains. We all looked at each other and said, "So?". We finished our limit. minus one Can apiece, no heavy winds or much rain. As we set out across the little bay, it hit. I had the tiller cranked sideways to keep the bow straight.  One guy bailed as we headed for safe harbor.  Finally made it to a bridge and the rain was blowing so hard, in order to get out of it, we were looking up at the sky, a good 20 feet away from the bridge - it was one of those sideways rains.  We waited out the rain and went back out and each got our Canvasback to finish our limit for the day. 

[g8rvet]

Oh almost forgot this one.  We call it the Tornado Tom.

Nephew and I had the day off during turkey season.  hard wind and rain forecasted, but had not heard any thunder.  We drive out to the turkey woods and as we sitting waiting for daylight, I say, oh it is hailing.  Turn the light on in the truck and realize it is pine needles hitting the windshield (first clue).  Wait til the right time and say to heck with it, we are going.  As we step out, the wind literally blows both our hats off our heads (second clue).  We head to the spot where I have a bird pretty well patterned.  As we are heading that way, my nephew, with better ears than me, says "hey, do you hear that train?".  I say, yeah I hear it, but the train tracks are to the north of us and that is to the south.  We decide to head to a low lying area and sit out that noise.  It passes by.  We go hunting and sure enough Tom comes out and we are watching him gobble at 100 yards.  I say watching, because we could not hear him over the wind.  Worst part is he walks within about 50 yards of us (his jake buddy is of course actually in range).  No calling would turn him, he just walked on by and out of sight. On our way out a few hours later we see the twisted and snapped pines where the tornado had passed through, maybe a half mile from our truck.  Not a big one, thank goodness. 

[beakbuster10]

Duck hunting a big WMA with 6 buddies last year. Weather was in the mid twenties with 10 degree windchill. The swamp we were hunting is 3 hours from home so we were going off the scouting done by one of the guys hunting with us from a week prior. Well, come sun up, we killed a few woodies and green heads but we watched hundreds of ducks pile into the other side of the swamp. Instead of being smart and walking back to the truck and driving to the other side, we decided we'd just cross the large "reservoir" that separated us and the ducks. It's really not a reservoir just a wide open expanse of waste deep water littered with stumps tree roots and sunken timber. We we started across. Two guys went down within 20 yards of making our break. Back to the truck they go. We get halfway across the reservoir and can't cross the old creek bed because of recent rain so the remaining 5 of us are hunkered in a patch of marsh grass the size of a lazy boy. We killed a few more greenheads and black ducks and called it a day because of our wet friends backs at the truck. On the way back 3 more of us went down. Leaving 2 out of the original 7 dry. Never again will I walk across that mine field.

Another duck story. Killed my first ever green head hunting a river with another guy that had never duck hunted. I knew the river was about to deep for my waders where the duck was but I wanted that greenhead. I filled my waders up in the last step to him. Hunted for another 10 minutes and then drudged back the 1/2 mile to the truck in 2 feet of snow. That was pretty stupid.


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[Kylongspur88]

I've been on some big water, and sometimes by myself, in dangerous conditions just to shoot a duck.

I did shoot through a high pressure gas line once while sighting in a deer rifle. It was a pure accident. The line wasn't marked and laid above ground in high weeds soo... that's kinda on them.

[Happy]

All I can say is I am glad I am not a duck hunter!

[chcltlabz]

Got way too many duck stories to recount them all.  I love to hunt divers, so cold, ice and wind are a given...

One I vividly remember that was actually on a warm sunny day, we were taking my built for big water boat hunting for puddle ducks.  Fuel filter was clogged, so we got out way too late, and probably should have just gone home.  Got set out and went to hide the boat and walk back to the set.  Well, the mud was a tad bit deep, as in, up to the top of my waders.  No problem, I called a buddy over to help pull me out, and of course, he gets stuck too, up to his waist as well.  Mind you, the one un-stuck member of our crew was shooting ducks, which made us try harder to get out, which certainly made matters worse, so we finally decided we needed help, because the tide was coming in, and we'd be up to our necks in water in a couple hours.  The game wardens were literally about to call in a rescue helicopter when I called Derek, who luckily wasn't far from us and had a mud boat.  He came to our rescue, and we gave up.  Everything was covered in mud for a month.

Stupid and dangerous turkey hunt was in South Dakota years ago.  It had rained a couple days in a row, and anyone who's hunted out there knows birds don't do anything in the rain, but we were there to hunt.  Hiked way on top of a mountain and spotted some birds in a field, of course, at the bottom on the other side.  Off I went, getting wetter by the minute, and colder too, because the temperature was dropping.  Got down near the birds, and they weren't going to work any calls (2 longbeards and more hens then I could count).  Couldn't get in front of them and they eventually moved off onto private land, so I hiked my way back up to the top, which was no small feat in the rain.  When I got to the top, I was dehydrated, wet, cold and obviously a little hypothermic, because I couldn't remember how to get down, and if I took the wrong route I'd end up someplace I couldn't get out of.  Luckily, the Army helped me realize what was going on, because I was getting panicky.  Took a couple minutes to get my bearings and got back to the truck in one piece.  Never rained a drop the rest of the trip.