This story is true as I remember it; only the names were changed to protect the innocent ducks.
This story begins in November around the fifth, it was rabbit, squirrel pheasant, quail and I believe woodcock season. This was the first time the 3 of us (Ray, Peter and I) went in the boat together.
The boat was a 12 foot Sharpie that was a custom made boat by Ray’s grandfather in Bishops Boatyard before the war. It was about 12 years old when Ray got it. The boat was sort of an experiment, it was a little higher than most 12 rowboats, which was good, but he left out the centerboard, which was not so good. The floor in most boats went crosswise and the centerboard went from the bow all the way to the stern. That made the bottom stronger. This boat had only the boards that went crosswise with no centerboard down the center.
The boat were using this day was his Grandfathers original one and it was rated for 300 lbs. With Ray, Pete and I, (now we are over the 300 lb. limit) we did not have much wasted space. We allowed 100 lbs extra weight to be safe to carry in the boat, However, the 3 guns weighed 45 lbs, ammunition another 12 lbs, life preservers, 20 lbs, food 15 lbs, anchor rope, 25 lbs gas and tank 25 lbs. We were already about to sink before we got started.
We set out it was dark about 6:30 AM at Ray’s dock in Sterling Creek and we had no lights and we had to ply our way around all the boats moored there. The trusty motor we had to get us through enemy waters was a powerful 2 hp Evenrude. As soon as we left the dock we had the motor wide open, why not it was just as fast at ¼ throttle as it was wide open which normally with 2 people is about 2.5 MPH.
Our goal this day was to land on shore at Shelter Island, a couple hundred yards past Hay Beach Point, about 3 miles away. We got of the creek at Sandy Beach and the motor slowed down and finally stopped.
“Why are we stopping here?” Said Pete.
“Well,” said Ray, “I thought it would be a good idea to get out and take a leak.” (I was just kidding) Ray said “I have to exchange the plug when it hits the real cold water it stalls.”
I said “OH! That’s just ducky, I can’t wait until we get out in the middle of the bay and it conks out. It will great if it happens in rough water.” (We were lucky as far as it not been rough.)
Shortly we were on our way again and the next obstacle was to get around the breakwater that was 800 feet long with rocks. If the tide was coming in around the breakwater we might have a problem. Rounding the end of the breakwater, we found the boat would not go any further because of the tide and the waves. With the motor wide open we were going slightly backwards. So we had to tack back and forth to gain any forward motion. It took us nearly a half hour to go 200 feet further. Shortly we were on our way again and made Hay Beach in an hour.
The beach was nice and sandy on the lee side the other side was a sandbar that went out about 1000 feet. It was only about 2ft deep in some places as far as 500 feet out and was easy to hit (if you had a boat fast enough to feel it) if we ran into it we would not realize it until we were not moving.
Ray and I had explored that area several times. We knew Hay Beach had a small marsh in the low beach area and a high wooded area behind it. Ray wanted to see if there were any ducks on the pond. Getting into the pond area he frightened a flock of 100 or so gulls including about 15 Great Black Back Gulls. Also, in his lumbering sneaking up about 50 sandpipers were flushed out of the upper beach area. Ray, also, wakened a bunch of plovers; I did not have time to identify. The grass in that area was tall nearly 3 feet in some areas and they were always wet especially in the morning. As Ray was rapidly finding out. We tried wearing layers of long socks, short boots and some kind of spats, but to no avail. We always go our feet wet and that can be mightily uncomfortable all day.
Pete said, “Do you think he realizes that it’s not duck hunting season yet.”
“I don’t think he much cares.” I said.
Pete and I did see 2 ducks fly up from the far end of the pond to far away. We followed behind Ray maybe 40 ft. He motioned us down with his hands; we could see all of this end of the point from where we now stood. We were above him now and could see quite clearly. But, Ray was still after something, he pointed to a spot that had several tree branches sticking out of the water. (we saw nothing) he even knew what kind of duck it was and kept motioning us down. We were already wet enough and Ray was nearly crawling in the grass getting wetter. Pete motioned to me and handed me a pair of opera glasses. (We all had binoculars home but knew we would ruin them in the salt water) Pete pointed at what Ray was sneaking up on. It was the early morning light glancing off the water and a branch sort of V shaped with a piece of bark on the high end sticking out of the water. That was Ray’s American Merganser (a duck). It had more white than a red breasted merganser so he new for sure which one it was. We stood up and jumped up and down, Ray was set to yell but then his duck did not move.
Now we were all wet, not any where as near as Ray. We were lucky though because it was at least 50 degrees out and was supposed to be in the 30’s. Anyway we pulled the boat up and put his wet pants in the bow of the boat to dry. We put his long sock over the trusty motor and ran it 4 or 6 times until it got hot and the socks started to burn. They dried out pretty well, but putting his wet muck lucks back on was something else.
Well later it was about noon by now, we left the boat and walked about a mile to the spot were looking for. It actually was a large piece of land probably owned by the Golf Club above it. But, there were no signs coming from the water direction, and it was a piece of land about 500 feet deep and over ¼ mile long. It had all sorts of brush and berries, a great spot for pheasants, rabbits, quail and all other kinds of wildlife.
We didn’t realize until several years later when we took our car over to explore around the area. That the reason it was soon good was that all the signs were out on the road on telephone poles telling you that this was a Shelter Island Wild Life Refuge. “Gee” who would of thought?
We had our food, life preservers and extra stuff in an 8 ft piece of canvas. When we pulled the boat up further on the beach it seemed rather heavy maybe the 3 inches of water covered by all our crap it hid our leaks pretty good Pete and I unloaded the boat and baled it out we must have lost our bailing can but you can always find another on any beach ‘not always” we did find a couple small cans. We finally tipped the boat over to get most of it out. “
I thought these “Sharpies” didn’t leak!” I said,
You think that’s a leak. You should see some of the bigger row boats some times they almost sink before you cross the creek. OH well, I really was not looking forward to going back, especially not being able to swim a stroke. Not that would help you much on a December day. We decided to walk down the beach to our special Wild Life Refuge it was about 3/4 of a mile. Pete and I let Ray go on ahead
I sure didn’t want to shoot anything. The shoreline was rather in and out and the sandy beach turned into rocks the further you
went the bigger they got, they made good cover to sneak up on
what ever might be there? The last bend had a large pile of rocks from up on the bank to about 75 ft above the water. Ray was about 100 feet ahead of us. He motioned us to sneak up to where he was. I was sort of leery of what he was motioned us for. I got to his position and he motioned to keep down. I looked over and what appeared to be 25 or 30 ducks possibly Scuap ducks possibly but
something didn’t look right. One thing I was pretty sure of I never
saw a duck rock back and forth in the waves and they all had their heads in the same position.
“There decoys,” I said
“No they are moving around.”
From what I saw they were not moving around like any ducks I ever saw plus the fact they would all be males. Ray insisted he was going to move a little closer to be sure he would not miss. I motioned to Pete we got to get out of here “NOW” Rays going to shoot someone’s Decoys. Both Pete and I made haste to get out of there. This was really an amazing twist of fate, that’s the only way to explain it; it was sure luck on our part. The same time Ray was sneaking up on these (DUCKS) decoys another (HUNTER) was sneaking up from the other side, which was a beach with tall grass. He got within 60 ft and Ray got about 100 ft on our side and they both opened fire. The other hunter fired not more than 3 or 4 seconds before Ray. Ray got off one shot the other guy got off 3 shots. I don’t think the decoy owners even noticed that they took fire from both directions. They apparently thought the one hunter fired at their decoys, anyway we three took off. But thinking someone might be coming after us, we cut into the woods above the beach. That wasn’t the smartest idea the, the woods along the bank were real overgrown with briars brambles and brush of amazing strength. We plowed through that mess not going around anything. All three of us had the same shotguns. We got them at the same time we had to have the most powerful guns available. We knew nothing about guns, I picked them out myself they were truly Cannons in our hands. The guns were 12 gage bolt-action 3 shot full choke deadly weapons. We ordered them from Sears in 1952. There is an amazing storey behind us getting these guns is funny but true and unbelievable. That fact that the safeties on all three were not working most of the time meant all three of them had the same faults.
Our chances getting back to the boat unscathed was slim.
Apparently I tripped once too often and my gun went off Pete’s
head blew off, I thought, but luckily it was just his hat I think
All three of us turned white, Pete never swore but he had some
real choice words some that I had never heard before. After a few
silent seconds past and we could see he wasn’t hurt.
“Ray quip and said “maybe we can find his hat if it has any holes in it he may not be alive.”
“ I m sure glad I was a lousy shot” I said.
We all agreed that we should unload our guns before we went any
Further. We did know that there was a problem with the safeties.
The safety was just a short piece of tin sticking up near the trigger a certain amount of shaking would make it fall down to the off position. There was a little yellow paint on the tip of it so you could find it, get your finger nail under it and pry it up to the on position. We eventually broke off a matchstick and wedged it under the safety to keep it on or off at the time. We bought these guns from the Sears catalogue. We knew nothing about guns we only knew that they had to be the most powerful guns available. The closer to a cannon that you can get. The guns we got were 12-gage bolt-action Full choke deadly weapons. That should have a tag attached with a warning (must be over 50 to operate).
When we finally made it from the woods opposite the boat Ray slid his gun down over the bank in front of him, the bank was about 4 ft high, so it was safer to put the gun ahead of you. He slid the gun down the embankment and when the barrel hit the sand, the gun went off and the sand blew back on us. We were really upset then. I guess that you could say that was the worse part of the day, Of course, we still had the boat to contend with. We felt relief that no that one was following us.
We got the boat packed up and pushed it off the beach right away
the water spurted up between the boards. In a couple of spots the water shot up a good 6 inches whenever we hit a wave and with the boat going forward all 4 boards in the middle were leaking, they sort of played a tune something like uppity ump bumity mph.
Buy the time we got to the end of the breakwater about half way back Pete was gradually losing the battle with the leak. I had found a smaller Campbell’s soup can and bailed all I could. It was
hard to tell how much water was in the boat as it sloshed around.
We almost made it back to the beginning of the breakwater when
the engine conked out and the over loaded boat sloshed to a halt.
There was more than 4 inches of water in an already overloaded boat. Pete tried to get in a better position to bail but instead lost the can overboard the can was still floating on top near the boat
Pete grabbed a paddle and tried to reach the can but the paddle
went away with the can. We only had one paddle and it was running away from us. We did some new word swearing some
words I never herd before. If we could only reach Sandy Beach it would be possible with a paddle before we sunk. Pete said I would
get us there and he grabbed his shotgun and held it by the barrel, and like a crazy man he paddled that boat close enough to the
Sandy Beach houses to get a hold of a boat tie up pole with a line that went to the beach house and saved us all. The End
I have other true but sometimes-crazy stories of my first days hunting. I have at least 10 started Every time I start another I
Remember another.
