New Water
I started trying to “notch” new duck species in South Carolina as a way of forcing myself out of some of the perennial habits that had developed over years of hunting alone. Prior to The Quest I had hunted the same spots and expected the same results year after year. That might not meet the strict definition of insanity but it is pretty close, especially when it comes to waterfowling. Killing a new species was, of course, the stated goal but the underlying motive had more to do with internal growth. The quest was supposed to be a fat carrot on a long stick that would keep me happy, healthy, driven and interesting deep into my old age.
Still, though, the goal was to, at least occasionally, kill a new species so I came up with a set of strategies that would lead me to that end. One of them is what I began to think of as the “New Water Strategy”.
The tactical approaches to the New Water Strategy are pretty intuitive and a lot of them were centered on my boat. I had War Eagle build a new 1436 exactly the way I wanted and sold my previous 1436. I hardwired a GPS/Depth Finder combo that has bathymetric mapping of both coastal and many inland waters. The unit gives me the confidence to run new water in the dark before I ever see it in daylight. I don’t rely on the mapping functions completely when I approach new water but the depth charting screens help keep me centered in runable water or, at least, tells me when I need to slow down. I do, however, allow myself to depend on the GPS to get me back to the ramp when I’m ready to pull up. I’m still embarrassed by my underdeveloped sense of direction but the best way to keep that hidden is to not get lost in the first place. The GPS helps with that. Updated boat lighting was another tactical project but I can promise I did not include or even consider adding multicolor “ground effect” lighting that makes my boat looks like a spaceship slipping through the marsh. All the lighting on my boat is there as a Coast Guard requirement or to allow me to work better and safer in the dark.
Choosing which new water, as it turned out, is a much more complicated process and a big part of the overall fun. I’ve poured through books studying the missing birds trying to match their habits and habitats to the abundant waters that dot, cross and cut through the topology of South Carolina. I never ask other duck hunters about where they kill ducks because it’s just not right but it doesn’t bother me one bit to interrogate a crabber at a gas pump or a bass fisherman at the ramp. It turns out that most crabbers usually have their heads down and pay little attention to the water around them. Asking bass fishermen got embarrassing because most of them usually end up thinking I’m after coots, grebes, loons or muscovys.
When I started this whole thing my missing bird list was 13 species but one of those, the harlequin, is illegal in SC or anywhere on the east coast. Half of the remaining 12 were sea ducks. This posed a problem because my small aluminum duck boat isn’t good in much more than a chop. Of course, I had always planned to poke around in the late season as close to the breakers I could comfortably and safely get but many of the sea ducks breed in fresh water in central and western North America. They have to get to the coast somehow. Drawing a straight line from the breeding grounds to the SC coast, especially for surf and white-winged scoter, showed that some, almost certainly, had to come through the Carolina piedmont and sand hills regions. Many of South Carolina’s river basins actually parallel that hypothetical linear migration. I grew up hunting the Santee Cooper system and moved to the coast when the lakes died so many of these inland rivers were, at the time, New Water. I have since learned a lot of new boat ramps and river channels in the midlands but as the old cliché goes, “the best laid plans…”
I ended up killing my first of each scoter within sight of the breakwater but learned a lot of interior new waters in the process. It was one of these spots that I found but never hunted until this past November when high water reminded me of an idea I had kept for just such an occasion. The extreme rain had pushed the river channel into a gum flat just off a main branch and submerged a couple of acres of water willow in front of that. I could hide my boat in the trees and my decoys wouldn’t have to compete with mostly still green willows. The inundated willows actually gave a good foothold to my decoy weights in the swifter than normal currents. I wasn’t trying to add to the list, I just wanted to kill a few ducks because my daughter was visiting and she still loves fresh, pan fried duck. The usual ringneck, gadwall and mallards would fit that bill perfectly. Daylight brought a stranger, though.
The first bird in that morning was a first-year white-winged scoter that decoyed perfectly. Maybe it was the white square on the painted gadwall that got the scoter’s attention or it was just lonely and any company would do. I added a pair of ringneck with a 2-shot double still under early light. Both were hens but I was meat hunting.
As it got lighter a few puddlers started moving. They tend to fly the river channel but up pretty high. I assume they’re migrating but I can sometimes break off a bird or two with a loud mallard hen call. I pulled in a trio of wigeon that circled several times. A single broke out of that group during one of their circles and hovered just over my string of mallards. I swear a slight baldpate and crisp plumage made me think I was shooting a young drake but it was a hen. It wouldn’t have mattered – like I said, I was meat hunting. A pair of mallards decoyed. I had a choice this time so I was much nicer to the hen but her boyfriend didn’t fare so well.
The novelty of killing a white-wing and a wigeon within minutes of one another wasn’t lost on me so I starting thinking wood duck but never got the chance. I would have liked to call this something like “Waterfowling’s Three ‘W’s’” but instead I just called it a morning. I headed home with the satisfaction of knowing that my new water strategy eventually produced a sea duck more than 100 miles from the coast.
When I pulled up my adult daughter was standing in our driveway with my wife and her dogs. The first words out of her mouth were, “did you get any?”
Yep, baby, I did.
[Sorry about the photo, I was in a hurry and never intended to post it]
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Originally Posted by Chessbay
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