Kurt and I went on the other side of the island to hooter hunt today. I let Kurt off, idled out and anchored the boat, then as I got into the punt, I proceeded to sink it. Had my life jacket on, which was good. I pulled my lard ass over the transom, then pulled the anchor, went to the beach and drained the punt, and tried again. Made it in this time. Kurt had an extra shirt and we wrung out my fleece pants. I just left my wet feet wet. We headed uphill towards the hooter we heard calling. We hiked about an hour up the hill till we got to the first bird. I saw the bird, and shot with the 12 ga. The bird flushed to the next tree. I tried again, and he flew off. We think the old ammo I had from Sara’s dad was no good, so we used Kurt’s .22 over .410 the rest of the day.
We harvested 5 birds after the first miss – all within about 1/8 mile of each other. The climb down was torturous. I used to scoff when people older than me told me it was harder going down hill than uphill. It now is harder. We came down a different path than we went up, but not by much. But it was much steeper, and killer on my knees. Must have been at least an hour on the way down. Maybe more. Luckily, we came out right at the boat, which was lazily at anchor and a welcome site. There was wolf scat and tracks on the beach. Both of us thought we heard dogs up the hill and maybe the wolves were nearby but we never saw them. I only had one Genny Creme in the boat, and Kurt and I split it. At the harbor, it was a painful walk up the dock to the truck. We got the boat back to the house. I took the wings and legs from Kurt’s birds, and sent him on his way. Then I cleaned my 3 birds and all the wings and legs and put them in saltwater and into the fridge. Could not have a better day when we were hunting. Even after my dunking. Birds hooting everywhere once we got up to them. The trek out was not as much fun and definitely can’t do that hunt two days in a row. Beautiful dry spring walk in the woods and a thunderdome of hooters.