You're welcome Chuck, I guess that's what this page is all about.
I've hunted rails out of many other boats. Including modern skiffs and canoes, I keep coming back to this old boat because it just handles so wonderfully. Stable, easy to push, and Classy.
You got that right. But, if you can stand a change of pace, walk them up. Shorts, tee shirt and sneakers. You might be surprised how much fun and how effective it is. The huntable tide is extended past whats needed for the boat. Plus everyone gets to shoot. And the laughs never end when somebody goes for a swim.
That's pretty interesting. I've never even considered that. Most of the areas we hunt sora is emergent tidal Rice Meadows. It's a pretty muddy bottom and I really don't know if it is walkable at lower tides. It may be , I just never tried.
After I posted, I saw that you walked up clappers. Clappers and virginias is how we first started to walk them up when I was a kid. The old timers said we were nuts, and it wouldn't work. They were correct about the nuts part.
The marshes we hunt them in rarely get enough water depth to push a boat. I like that you have success with a dog. We had very limited success with dogs, I'm not sure why. That's why we wear shorts and old sneakers, no sense filling waders. Also, the birds around here may move to the edge of the rice at high tide, if there's thick spartina, sedge or three square rush for them to hang on and hide. The grass tends to grow on a more solid bottom than the rice.
Your Welcome Brandon, I figured you guys would enjoy it.
Wow! I can't imagine walking in the race Meadows. Even at high tide sometimes the push poll sinks in a good foot or more.After I posted, I saw that you walked up clappers. Clappers and virginias is how we first started to walk them up when I was a kid. The old timers said we were nuts, and it wouldn't work. They were correct about the nuts part.
We hunt the soras in rice as well. It is thick nasty mud, but if your bottom is anything like ours you can do it. You will fall and get wet!
I guess I'd stay in the boat! The places we hunt only have a couple feet of water at the top of flood.
Have you walked them up in Maine? All my sora hunting has been down in Merrymeeting Bay's rice and bullrush flats. The birds are hard to find except at high tides where they concentrate in the thickest patches of floating rice. In the early season, it's good way to kill the dead time for ducks around slack high tide, though there are more birds here in September. I'm told some of our salt marshes have them too, but have never seen them there.
Jeff,
Lol yes, That's about the only kind of Prostaff I want to join! Eric's tip about peanut butter jars Has got me thinking now
Very nice Vince! We really are brothers from another mother
Jode, how do you normally cook your rails? Every year my brother tells me to come out to a particular farm and shoot some rails that are in the field ditches he is mowing and just sent me a video of them today so I thought maybe Monday going out and trying a few.
Really nice thread Jode. Thanks for taking us along.
