You need to find and buy the book "Outlaw Gunner" by Harry Walsh. Lots of cool stories in there about the big guns. For example:
Old Ander took a keen and understanding look at the sunset. He realized that its placid appearance was a hoax. His glass had been falling all day, and the smooth surface of the water seemed thick and oily. With half a century of sunsets behind him, Ander knew that bad weather was on its way. Tonight, with his light, he would hunt.
The hunter had spent the day shooting behind an ice blind. His double-barreled number eight shotgun was painted white and he was cloaked from head to toe in a white sheet. Small metal creepers were fastened to this boots for traction on the ice. His wooden sleigh, pile high with ducks, attested to his success- now, however, as the stormy night approached, the hunt would begin in earnest.
Ander sloshed about the shoreline in his hip boots, preparing his one-man sneak skiff for the hunt. His lean, gnarled hands needed no gloves, for the weathering of many years had made them immune to the cold. Keen gray eyes gleamed from beneath the shaggy eyebrows of a leathery face covered with a grizzly beard. The strength of two men stormed through his soul. His entire mien was indicative of the stamina and self-reliance that befit a man who pits himself against the rigors of the Bay locked in the frigid grip of winter.
The little 12 foot, 100-pound skiff was made tight with boiling water and her bottom had been coated with oily lampblack. Now she would prowl for miles and slice across the water effortlessly, never leaving a wrinkle. The hunter realized that she was low, narrow and tippy- and that the edge of death lurked only one mistake away. However, in Ander’s hands, she was a machine of destruction.
Carefully, Ander retrieved the gunning light from its hiding place and fixed it to the bow of the boat. The light was highly prized and had helped to feed several generations of his family.
As the sun set, Ander skiffed down its blood-red path through the loose ice to the low-bluffed islands that were his hunting grounds. At the edge of the dark, the sky had assumed an ominous expression. The storm will come with the tide- and from the Northwest thought Ander; still plenty of time for a good hunt.
In the calm of the night, he adjusted the focal point of the light against the bank; just enough light to remain hidden, and no more. The beam was fixed on the water at ideal range.
The night was hardly aware of Ander’s presence as he glided like the fog across the water. He shoved along on the hard sandy bottom, never making a sound. The leading edge of paddle cut clearly through the water- rarely leaving it – and always pointing aft. In the darkness, his inborn directional system told him where he was.
Ahead, the “meowing” of redheads could be heard. Their catlike sounds mingled with the guttural croaking of the canvasback. As the skiff drew nearer, the multitude of sounds combined in a rising, undulating wave of sound- a strange but familiar chorus to the night hunter.
The soft light fell upon a small flock of feeding canvasback, and immediately they began to swim for deeper water. They are too fast and too few, thought Ander.
The main flock lay ahead. Barely did the skiff move, but the distance between it and the flock gradually diminished. The closer and more alert ducks noticed the light, but were not alarmed. Slowly the flock gave way toward the ice flow against which Ander was driving them.
Their ranks thickened as they became compressed along the ice. In mild alarm, they milled about and extended their necks. This made them a better target.
Those closest to the light made a move to swim past the boat. As they did, they were looking directly into Ander’s gun barrel. Carefully, the light was swung from ahead onto the leading birds. As they stopped, the others jammed in from behind. Ander pulled the trigger.
With the shot, the light went out and hell’s cauldron erupted. The night was suddenly out of control in a hysterical symphony of discord. The weird, strident cough of dying birds never to rise again mingled with the convulsive screams of the living. A thousand wings beat the air and water with the reverberating echo of the shot. The world was upside down, its horizon tipped as the birds flew into the ice, the water, the boat and each other. Panic spread as waterfowl elsewhere added their voices to the cacophony.
Then all was still.
Ander relit the light and as its rays flooded the water, he picked up over fifty limp, silent forms.
Ander’s attention now shifted to some geese whose feeding could be heard over the great void of water. Like a prowling shark, he headed his skiff in their direction.
The wind had now begun to make little tracks in the sea. Soon, parallel ranks of waves laced the surface, prophesying the approaching storm. Just time for one more shot, thought Ander.
With the wind at his back, Ander’s approach to the geese was far too fast. The purr of their feeding ceased and was replaced by a low warning call. Each gander became the spokesman for his flock.
Like a thief in the night, Ander retreated. With the light held steady, the hunter bided his time until the feeding resumed.
Now the slow deadly stalk began. On the perimeter of the light, a few indistinct, ghostlike forms appeared. Several brant materialized, feeding on the surface. They wiggled their tail feathers in Ander’s face; he could have caught them as they obstructed his path. Finally, the unwanted companions faded into the night and the chase resumed.
The first geese to loom into the light appeared like a flock of sheep. They swam hesitantly before the light. Gradually, the feather detail became visible and both the eyes and markings under the jaw could be discerned.
The hunter knew the geese would take no more. They turned into the wind with their necks extended. Flight was imminent.
The shot was like cutting a path through a field of golden wheat. “I put a hole in them that time,” thought Ander.
Ander was subduing the last of his geese and securing them to the bitter end of his anchor line, when a large floe of ice, several acres across, came charging into the warning rays of his light. The wind, which had freed the floe, was now driving along a path of destruction. The hunter desperately gave way towards deeper water and the open Bay beyond. Neither he, nor the boat, would survive long in the dangerous seas. All efforts to return to shallow water and safety were blocked by the ice floe.
The first flakes of snow arrived with increasing winds heralding their approach. The storm had given Ander ample warning.
Ander knew that he was in serious trouble. In a desperate bid for life, Ander found a safe passage directly into the mouth of the storm. A small island should lie ahead and it had to be reached before the full fury of the storm struck. If the hunter were wrong, no one would ever hear his story.
The black murky depths of the Bay swelled up about Ander as if anxious to consume him. The storm grew in power and fury. The seas rocked the skiff and its flat bottom slapped them in return. Flying clouds of spray began to freeze, filling the boat and dulling its action.
The blade of the shoving paddle no longer found the bottom to give it strength. Though the oar clawed deeply into the water, it could find little purchase against the buffeting wind.
The night played tricks on Ander’s eyes while the driving snow nearly blinded him. No sailor ever sought land with more hunger.
Ander’s light had been burning brightly through it all. It swung with the bow like some giant Cyclops casting its eye about, as though it too were searching. There was nothing but the black of night, laced and lashed with snow.
The hunter was about to alter his course to destruction, when from an unsuspected compass came a faint and fleeting glimpse of shore. The faithful light had shown the way.
The seesaw battle continued as Ander worked frantically for his life. His paddle finally found the bottom and began driving the skiff forward.
The tempest now reigned supreme over the land and voiced it authority with an angry, shrieking wind. Storm waves lashed the island’s high red banks, and their life’s blood stained the water. Each wave that rose too high promptly had its head blown off. Spray blanketed the island, freezing where it struck.
Ander quickly found shelter under a bank and his skiff. A large pyramid of wood fueled by the kerosene of his lamp roared into flame. The hunter’s clothes were soon steaming, while he sat like a smoked mackerel- one side fried and the other side frozen.
A snow-wrapped, ice-encrusted world of fantasy greeted both sun and hunter in the morning. Spears of light came shooting through the heavy clouds and were bursting with dazzling brilliance on the world of icy emeralds. The storm had passed and carried with it the unpleasant memories of the previous night.
The skiff was loaded and the hunter began shoving across the ice with his game in tow. Daylight was burning and Ander had work to do.
