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...

My next DIY project is for those of you who are already thinking about next duck season.   If you've hunted open water with a guide, especially from a "scissor rig" on the Currituck or Pamlico Sounds, chances are your guide may have employed a floating "Mojo" or other spinning wing duck decoy.  Especially on the big water, you often need some movement to draw the birds in from afar.   For my weekend-warrior duck hunting pursuits, I wanted to try and recreate a similar Mojo rig.  The biggest issue is, the water's deep.  You're not sticking any sort of pole into the bottom.  And even if you could, the best days are the rough days.  The chop of the sound isn't going to let the thing stand up even if you could get it in the mud.   As luck would have it, on a summer trip to Maine, I spotted an "offshore" lobster buoy washed up on the rocky beach.  I suddenly visualized the thing, perhaps, being perfect for this floating, deep-water...

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.  

It was the first weekend of the first "split" of duck season.  Mid-November.  Unfortunately . . . our first hunt on the sound this year didn't go quite as planned.   Several buddies and I had two Currituck National Wildlife Refuge Blinds, off Knotts Island.  We've had good hunts there before , and I love going up to that part of the world.  Northeastern North Carolina is a special place, a place full of water and waterways.  A place full of history, thanks to all that water.  One of the first colonized areas of Carolina.  Knotts Island is an especially unique place . . . and getting there from the rest of our state requires boarding the Currituck ferry or driving into Virginia, and coming back south, down NC 615, through Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge, and onto Knotts Island, the island-peninsula jutting out into the Currituck Sound. This year, we rented a cabin at a campground right on the state line.  Wate...

I’m not asking ya’ll to fully understand what it was like growing up hunting and fishing in Eastern North Carolina.  But it was great.  It’s something I really am thankful for.                         It was cold and dark.   There was that nip in the salty morning air that tells you its hunting season.   The flame from the propane burner and the hot oil just starting to pop and bubble in the charred aluminum fish fryer would only momentarily warm my hands.   My little brother and I stood around the burner.   When the thermometer read 350, I dropped in two lightly breaded bluefish filets, trying not splash the oil.   The cold filets sank in the hot oil.   A few minutes later they floated to the surface, the breader crusted into that gold brown characteristic of most fried food.   We ate them and they were darn goo...