The Tar Heel Outdoorsman

Tradition.  I would wager that's what that many of us love about the outdoors.  That sameness that keeps us coming back.  The same familiar duck and deer camps.  The same family and friends.  The same dogs. The same memories of those who've left us.  The same passed down guns and gear.  The same dented trucks and worn-fiberglass skiffs and scraped and shot-up decoys. The same meals and snacks.  The same old thermos of coffee,  perhaps with a hint of something extra to keep you a bit warmer.  Season after season.  Year after year.  Things that make us feel that secure continuity of life, especially when the world around us seems more ever-changing and unpredictable.  Things that make us feel a sense of community, family, and connection to this place and our place in it. One of those traditions, for me and a few buddies, is the opportunity for some permit duck hunts.  We started this thing back in college. We've continu...

Rails.  Marsh Hens.  Mud Chickens.   What fun little birds.  The tide is the big factor---very high, often around a big moon in early fall---high enough that these marsh fowl don't have much of a place to hide, hopefully congregating around the floating mats of dark reeds, or maybe just off some of the higher areas of marsh or a small island with some brush and scrub live oaks.  We push the skiff through the spartina grass, trying to jump some birds.   We strain looking for them.  Sometimes they try to sneak off, we barely see their heads as they slink away through the water, out of scatter gun range.  We have to get close to them for the birds to take flight.  Sometimes we have to almost give them some encouragement with the push pole to hop up airborne.  Sometimes they don't fly far, sometimes they try and make it to the next "hammock" over, the next higher section of marsh.   It's lower, slower shooting than those ...

The old scatter gun was showing some age.  It was the first gun I  paid for myself, with money I saved up from cutting grass and other chores---a whopping $300 or so new.  Some rust showing here and there.  The "bluing" wearing off.  A cracked edge where the stock meets the receiver.   Despite it being a "cheap" gun, I'd always liked how it shouldered, and I felt like I swung through my shots better with the thing---maybe because of the heavier weight of the over and under.  I wasn't ready to sell it for next to nothing.   I'd shot my cousin's CZ "All Terrain,"   and really enjoyed it.  The gun is an over and under featuring a walnut stock and forearm with an "OD" green receiver and barrel coated with Cerakote---in an effort to make the typically less weatherproof over and under more durable in the field.  I thought it looked cool too: (https://www.gundogmag.com/editorial/cz-redhead-premier-allterrain-shotgun-review/466807...

Not many hunts for me this year . . . but you've got be pretty darn thankful for the ones you get.   There were a few woodies from what I call the "wood duck season," the short five day season in October.  A hunt with some family friends near the Cape Fear wound up bird-less . . .  and the same result for several other hunts.   Towards the end of the season, though, my buddy Cas Prewitt had a spot in the blind up in Tyrell County. Up I went, from Wilmington.  Too, it was great to see Clyde Firman and Andy Clements, two men who made hunting possible up at boarding school at Woodberry Forest---one of the few schools I know of where you can bring a shotgun to school and hunt on campus. And, finally, that weekend in Tyrell County, there were a few ducks.  

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....