Date: January 16 (Chesapeake Bay Maryland)
Hunters: Myself, Jeff, and John (Guides: Hunter then Nick)
Time: Morning
Location: Tilghman Island
Weather Conditions: About freezing, light wind to strong wind, cloudy light to moderate rain.
Waterfowl Activity: Lots of old squaw not interest in us until we swapped with a nearby group that had limited in a layout, fair number of scoter, and a few other varieties.
Fairly early we had a pair of scoters do it right. I dropped one on my first shot and we let the other one get out. Had a lot of old squaw around squawking all around us but they just had no interest except a small hen that plopped in the decoys first thing and we let her go in peace. A little later a single scoters came in beautiful, Jeff and John took care of business. Then just the old squaw flying almost non stop in singles to small groups, sometimes landing just out of range mostly showing us no mind.
Then another guide hunting nearby in a layout had his guys limit on old squaw so we swapped with them. Jeff and John went up first. It had slowed down quite a bit. They got a couple Then weather started moving in. He asked if I wanted to jump in for the last 15 minutes or so. I said "no." Then Jeff and John managed to finish their limit and the weather hadn't come in as fast as expected, so I decided to give it a go for as long as the weather permitted. Which wasn't a very long time.
We started taking waves over the back of the layout. Always wear rain gear. Thankfully. I did take a little down the neck. That will wake you up. Then we took a big wave over the back. I sat up and saw how much water we had in the layout. John was with me in the layout and we decided it was probably best to call it before we filled the layout.
Curses: Nothing I would consider a curse. Just waterfowling. If you don't want to be wet and cold pick another hobby.
Birds By Species: 1 surf scoter, 1 black scoters, 7 old squaw
Photo Ops:We got a few inches of snow overnight.
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You almost always get some water in the layout, but this was a bit much.
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Not a bad pile. Only 2 were mine, but can't complain about the day.
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