The Tar Heel Outdoorsman

Rails.  Marsh hens.  Rail birds.  Marsh chickens. Whatever you wanna call 'em. I'm by no means an experienced marsh hen hunter . . . I've only tried for the salt marsh fowl a handful of times. There can be some work required for this briny mix of dove and quail hunting.  Especially trying to push the skiff through the spartina grass when the tide hasn't risen quite enough . . .  especially with a not-quite-long-enough push pole.  You, like me, may be huffing and puffing. But when you spy a rail-bird through the grass, when you see that long distinctive bill, when you see that dark brown, slinking through the flooded grass, low, low like a nutria or a rat, those hunting instincts that lay dormant in many of us start to stir. This really is hunting , though the shooting isn't all that difficult.  Your eyes straining, looking for the small bird, the bird just trying to evade your detection.  He, the bird, won't jump up and flush easily....

I finally returned to the mountains.  While I'm a flatlander, I do love the mountains, and the solitude and peacefulness and, of course, the trout they provide. When I drove up to Cashiers last April, it was the first time I'd made it to the North Carolina mountains in maybe three years.  Too long.  It'd been before I spent some time in Wyoming at A Bar A in 2016.  To make things worse, I hadn't even trout fished since I visited some friends back in Wyoming in 2017. April Both in April and September, I drove up with my girlfriend, Mary Ann, staying at her grandmother's cabin in Cashiers.  Of course, I dragged Mary Ann along fishing... driving to the "Tuck," and Panthertown.  The Tuck is heavily stocked but fished fairly hard as it winds along the road.  It's wide for a Carolina trout river, and its flows are affected by Duke Energy releases. The future calls for finding a friend with a drift boat or raft or hiring a guide to throw streamers...

We drove from Cashiers, turning right onto NC-281 off of US-64. Shortly, we pulled into Gorges State Park.  The parking lot to Rainbow Falls was packed... two park rangers were working parking duty... We kept driving, though, on the Chestnut Mountain Road.  And unlike the packed paved parking lot, the dirt mountain road was almost totally empty.  Besides one other car, we had the place to ourselves to explore.   The drive isn't a fast one.  It's a sit back and enjoy it one.  It's about 6 miles, one way, from where the pavement ends to the Horsepasture River.  It's a soak in the mountains and the rocks and the trees and the leaves rustling in the wind and the small streams gurgling past.   You'll need a vehicle with a little ground clearance, though you don't need anything too crazy.  You may want four wheel drive, though I don't think it's necessary, due to some loose rock and gravel.   You'll...

Marks and scraped paint here and there along the edge of a drab-painted metal pit blind.  They're left from a duck hunter's tapping a stubborn raw oyster in the afternoon cold, attempting to coax the thing open.  A lasting reminder of the good times had.   A compilation of ENC shenanigans.   Ducks. Liquid Refreshments.  Oysters.  Toe Jam.  Soft Crabs.  Stogies.  Steaks.  Big White Birds.  Biscuits.  Tyrrell County.  Wilson County.  New Hanover County.