I was reading an article in Tom Remington’s Black Bear Blog  about a bear hunter who was attacked by a black bear after his shot knocked it from the tree, but didn’t kill it.  Apparently the hunters were out of ammunition, and things got ugly fast.  How could they be out there without ammo? 

Well, as I said in my reply to Tom’s post, it can happen.

“The best laid plans of mice and men, g’ang aft agley.”
Robert Burns, To a Field Mouse

In 1989, at a loss for what to get my father-in-law for Christmas, it occurred to me that he might like to go duck hunting.  Many of his stories from his youth revolved around hunting…particularly duck hunting along the Ohio River.  He hadn’t really done any hunting since moving his family to North Carolina in the early ’70s, but he was always very animated when the topic of hunting came up (which was pretty danged often, with me for a son-in-law). 

I bounced the idea off my wife.  “I think he’d love that!” she exclaimed.  “He hasn’t been hunting since we moved here.”

My own folks have a home right on the banks of the Cape Fear River, and my dad, brother, and I often hunted ducks right down the river from their house.  It’s a short, 10 minute boat ride to a couple of islands situated in a bend of the river, and we usually did pretty well on wood ducks, teal, and the occasional mallard.  I figured that would be a good place to take him, since it was close by and reasonably good shooting.

I called my dad and asked if George (my father-in-law) and I could borrow his jon-boat to go duck hunting on Christmas Eve morning, or even better, if he’d like to join us on a hunt.  He said he wasn’t sure if he’d go along, but we were welcome to borrow the boat. 

The week before Christmas, George and I made a quick run over to the sporting goods store where I paid for his license and stamps.  He still had his old Remington 870 magnum, so he didn’t need a new gun or anything.  He offered to buy a box of shells, but I assured him that we had plenty.  My dad always keeps a big ammo box in the deck of the boat, loaded with cases of shells. 

As if by magic, the night before our hunt we got a rare dose of winter in southeastern North Carolina, with heavy snow and icy temps. It would be the first white Christmas in Wilmington, NC in over 100 years.  The television newscasters were all over themselves, and the excitement swept over everyone.

I was doubly excited, because I knew that the near-zero temperatures would freeze the skinny water and push the ducks out onto the deep, fast-moving water of the Cape Fear.  This storm was also joined by another that rolled down from the north, freezing Maryland and Virginia and sending clouds of ducks into North Carolina.  I could barely contain myself that evening as I stepped out to gather some firewood and the first big flakes of snow hit my face. 

The morning of the hunt dawned on what promised to be a textbook duck day.  The wind howled through the pines by the boat landing as I tossed in a couple of bags of gang-rigged decoys, then set the cased shotguns down by the gunwales.  I double-checked the fuel tank, and made sure our thermos of hot coffee was packed in an accessible spot. 

My dad came down to watch us, but opted out of joining the hunt.  On a good day, three people are a bit much for the little 12-foot jon-boat.  This morning offered wind-whipped whitecaps on the big river, and a wind-chill hovering around 10 or 15 degrees below zero.  These were definitely conditions that only a duck hunter could appreciate.

Dad gently suggested that we cancel the hunt and come up for coffee and a hot breakfast instead.  I looked at George.  This was his party, after all… if he wanted to cancel, I wouldn’t blame him.  He didn’t need to speak an answer.  The excitement in his face belied his years.  He was like a kid… his eyes wide and bright, and he was grinning from one side of his half-frozen face to the other. 

My dad looked us over, looked out at the raging river and swirling snow, and then looked back at the warm lights of the house up on the hill.  “You guys are crazy.  Have fun, and be careful.”

I backed the boat down to the river, then George held it against the rolling waves as I pulled the starter cord.  The well-tuned motor responded right away, and roared to a friendly rumble as it warmed up.  I pulled the hood of my parka up over my face, snugged down my heavy gloves, and motioned to George to hop in.

We got to the little marsh island, and I set out the dekes in the grey of pre-dawn.  With the rising sun, we were covered up in ducks.  I saw species that I’d never seen in the area before, including flight after flight of widgeon.  Mallards and wood ducks hurtled by on the screaming wind.  I dug through my parka sleeve, and three layers of heavy shirts to find my watch.  Shoot time!

I reached in the pockets of my parka and dug out the ammo I had there.  Somehow, there were only nine shells!  No worries, there are more in the boat.  I handed three rounds to George and stuffed two into my old double-barrel. 

We had no more loaded the guns than a flock of widgeon turned on the wind and struggled to land.  The birds hovered, floating just over the blocks.  “Take them!” I yelled. 

At my first shot, my bird tumbled from the air.  The wind actually carried him away as he fell.  The whitecaps obscured the splash, but he was down.  George’s first shot went wide, but his second shot dropped his bird.  It hit the water and started to swim.  I leveled off with my second barrel and gave him a load of steel #2s.  The bird flattened out on the water and floated off with the tide. 

I stuck two rounds into my gun, and gave George the last two shells, then shoved the boat out of the reeds and jumped in to go recover our birds.  The wind-driven current was rushing past at a frightening rate, and the dead birds were already 100 yards away. 

I realized that the storm was intensifying as the sun came up, but the birds only seemed to come on stronger.  Flocks of birds darted by on the wind, as other flocks struggled to work upwind against the gale.  Waves crashed and broke on the stern, spraying me with a mist that froze to my jacket and waders almost as quickly as it hit.  I looked back in time to see George swinging his muzzle on a small flock of wood ducks that came screaming by.  The wind carried away the reports almost before I could hear them, but I could make out two muffled shots.  No birds fell, and George waved at me, almost cheerily.

He was down to one shell, and I had the boat with the ammo box.  Birds were literally swarming over the river now, even with me out here in the boat.  I caught up to the first bird, but had to rev the motor in order to catch the second, barely visible in the ice and freezing foam. 

I turned the boat across the wind, taking sloppy waves over the rail as I went broadside.  This storm was pretty bad.  Fortunately, when the time came to leave, we could run back to the house along the riverbank, partially protected from the full fury of the weather.  I gunned the little five-horse motor, and it did all it could to carry me back upstream to the island where George waited for my return, and for more ammo.  He fired his last shot as a mallard floated by like a balloon on the wind, but the bird showed no effects. 

The gang-rigged decoys were bouncing and tangling.  One of the anchors had moved, so I decided to try to straighten them out before pulling back into the reeds.  I grabbed one end of the line, and started pulling the string across the wind.  I saw George pointing at something behind me and yelling excitedly.  We were only about 20 yards apart, but the wind stole his words as soon as they left his mouth.  I couldn’t hear a thing, but turned to see what he was pointing at.

A string of widgeon, maybe 15 or 20 birds, was hovering over the gang-rigged decoys that I was pulling behind the boat.  They were trying to land with the blocks even while I was sitting right there in the open.  I laughed, but could do little else except drop the anchor back over the side and turn to let the wind drive me into the reeds. 

As soon as I grounded, I pulled the motor up and drew my shotgun out of the case.  The birds were still trying to land in the dekes!  Amazing!  I picked a bird and gave it the first barrel.  I don’t know how I could have missed, but I did.  I touched off the second barrel.  The bird dipped and feathers exploded, but it didn’t fall immediately.  By reflex, I reached into my pocket for another shell, but of course my pocket was empty.  The bird, obviously hit hard, tried to keep up with the rest of the rapidly disappearing flock before it finally just fell out of the air. 

After retrieving the bird, I crouched down into the deck of the boat, and pulled out the decoy bags and burlap camo to get the ammo box.  It was gone!  I scrambled around the boat, moving stuff and digging frantically.  That box was ALWAYS in the boat during hunting season!  But not today.   

I went ashore and conferred with George.  He had a great sense of humor about the whole thing, but the cold and the storm were obviously a little intimidating.  Snow was blowing so hard you couldn’t see 50 yards across the water.  It stung your face if you turned into it.  The mainland, just across a little channel from the island was little more than a dark shape through the flurry.  I asked if he wanted me to run back to my folks’ house to get the ammo box, or if he’d rather cut and run with what we had so far.  I could tell he was thinking real hard about the choices, but then a flock of mallards floated overhead, no more than 10 yards above us, and that steeled his nerve.  “I’ll be fine, go get some shells!” he shouted.

I pulled away from the little island with some slight misgivings.  I was leaving George on a tiny (15′x20′) hump of land in a screaming winter storm.  The waves were lapping up on the banks of the island.  The island (a hummock, really) only protruded about a foot and a half above the high tide mark on a good day.  A flood tide would cover it completely. 

George was standing there, a little forlorn, in an old pair of hip boots and all the warm clothes he probably owned, his empty shotgun cradled uselessly in his arms.  He leaned into the gusting wind, head bowed against the stinging snow and the wind-driven spray from the raging river.  It was a rather desperate picture.

The storm showed no sign of abatement.  In fact, it seemed to keep building.  I almost turned back to get him, but another big flock of ducks struggled upwind, directly over the island.  George looked up at them, pointed his empty shotgun at them as they passed, then looked back at me and grinned. 

When I hit the landing, I beached the boat and ran up the hill to the shed.  That ammo box had to be in there. 

My dad had seen me coming in, and came shuffling through the snow to meet me. “Where’s George,” he asked me?  “Tell me you didn’t leave him out there?”

“Um.  Well,” I stammered, before going on the offensive.  “You didn’t tell me you took the ammo box out of the boat.  We’re out of shells.”

“Shells hell!” he scolded.  “Go get him off that island, and both of you get your crazy asses up to the house.  If you don’t freeze to death in this storm, you’re likely to sink my damned boat and drown the pair of you!”

So ended the Great Christmas Hunt of 1989. 

I felt awful about my stupidity, and not checking to make sure the ammo was in the boat.  After all the preparation and anticipation of this hunt, this wasn’t how I wanted it to end.  But I guess George still had a great time.  It was definitely exciting…experiencing that kind of weather first-hand is something that most people will never get to do (most will never WANT to do it).  And seeing the birds like that… well, I’ve never seen anything like it, before or since.

George still talks about that hunt.  I think that, despite it all, he still thought it was a pretty good Christmas present. 

And we did get a couple of ducks.
 

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