Long Island Thanksgiving Opener (Rough Start)

ZHalsey

ZHalsey

New member
This year's thanksgiving opener was my first one spent away from my hunting blind with my new to me Marsh Hawk duck boat...sort of.

I have been having some trouble with the engine at idle but decided to give it a go anyway since I can't skip out on opening day. Got down to the boat ramp, wind was blowing into the ramp out of the northwest, as I backed down the ramp, I must have went a little too far for the short rollers the boat sat on because I could see the boat swinging to the left out of my rearview mirror. I quickly hopped out of the truck, and wrestled the outboard off the transom of the boat and placed it on the beach before the waves knocked it against the concrete ramp, and causing any real damage.

Once I managed to get the boat back onto the trailer, I decided that with my soaking wet and frozen arms, boat ramp which is nearly impossible to launch a 13' boat from given the wind speed and direction, and outboard sitting in the bed of my pickup truck that it was time to call it quits for opening day and head back to a warm bed. Luckily for me, two gentlemen who were putting their boat in at the same ramp saw part of my struggle and after chatting, offered me to hunt with them. On our way out to the hunting spot, they revealed that this boat was in fact their 2nd boat brought to the ramp this morning as their first one was having engine trouble. The gentlemen happened to be US Fish and Wildlife officers, great guys who had a lot of information to offer about hunting the area, waterfowl ID, and decoy carving...they didn't even check my gun or license.

Hunted from legal shooting time and packed it in around 9:30 with 3 black ducks and a gadwall. Had a few shots at some buffies, mallards, and other gadwalls, but we were still shooting the rust out of the barrels from last season.

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Special thanks to the guys who turned an almost spoiled day in the field into a Thanksgiving opener to remember.

Spent the rest of the weekend pricing new outboards and building new bunks for my trailer so the issues I had to deal with opening day should hopefully never happen again.

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It always seems that the motor problems happen at the ramp which really can be a good thing! But glad to know that there are still people that are willing to give others a hand or give an offer like that!
 
Zack,
Great start for the season. Been there and have done that. All the prep and things go south... Also meet some really nice duckboat people at the same time. A little more time with the boat and motor will get it done, we've all been through that. Still a place in the blind for you...
 
Zack
We've all had problems with the wind landing and launching especially alone. It is gratifing to see people come forward to help so I always offer to help in turn. I've seen a few too proud to want help and generally get into trouble but generally complete strangers will give a hand. The wardens certaintly saved your day of hunting and you'll find most are pretty decent guys. Thanks for posting.
wis boz
 
Zach, launching against the wind can be a pain, especially when you are hunting solo. See if you can find another launching area with a dock that shelters you in the wind. Another alternative is to have a few spots, just in case you cant launch at your primary spot. I keep track of launch ramps and spots using Google Earth and know where to go, and not go.... in any wind direction.

They key with any new boat is also learning a few "tricks" or ways to make your life easier. You will develop those over time based upon your setup, half the fun is learning new things.

Let's plan on getting together with the boats sometime this season. I will show you what a rocket ship that boat is with a little more HP on the stern.
 
Thanks for the replies all...if duck hunting didn't have hiccups and mishaps like mine it wouldn't be duck hunting. I look at it this way, the more bad days and mishaps, the more good days are on the horizon.

Chris - hopefully by the time we get out in our boats together mine will have "rocket speed" also. Shopping around for outboards now, it looks like I'll have something in the next week or so.
 
Good story...I don't think there's such a thing as a bad day duck hunting, some are just more taxing than others. Brrr--I could feel your frozen arms and empathise with your thoughts of a warm bed...thankfully the hunting wardens saved the day...did you hunt all day with wet arms? If so your hands were probably numb--good excuse for missing those shots!
I am always interested too in references to the east coast Marsh Hawk. Never knew such existed until I joined this forum.My Marsh Hawk is No. 6 off the mold in a small Western Washington town nobody's ever heard of; the maker died soon after and his molds gathered blackberry vines outside the abandoned shop...I heard some guys had retrieved them and were going into production somewhere, and that was the last I heard. Guess the east coast Marsh Hawk is just a case of parallel naming--can't see how the molds from here would have migrated all that way...
 
bill, i called the boat the hawk, people just started calling it the marsh hawk. i do not think the other company was started in 1999 or 2000. i dont advertise just word of mouth on long island. the boat was made by someone on island before me . i bought the mold an stored for years before building my version of it in 2000. hope this helps rick
 
Rick this is interesting...doesn't say where you are located.
Where did you pick the mold up?
My guy was long dead and buried by the turn of this century.I drove up to Sedro Woolley to pick up number six from the shop the year I got a nice promotion from the then chief of the Washington State Patrol that came with an extra $400 per month. That was 1988, and the fellow who built them didn't survive to 1990. Nowhere on my boat appears the name Marsh Hawk--but that was the name assigned by him on the paperwork I had to take to the Department of Licensing to register a custom boat (use taxes in this state are a bitch.) Had an interesting time with the state employees credit union getting a loan for a boat they couldn't just dial up on their rolodex or whatever they used to assign values. But being a member of the Geheimstatspolizei has its merits--and that was one--they found a way because one does not offend senior Patrol staff gratuitously.

I only saw two others since--one by the side of the road with a for sale sign, filled with snow, tires flat, phone number obliterated by the weather and 200 miles from home. The other was No. 1, and its owner saw mine in a McDonald's parking lot near Skagit Flats and came inside to look for us. He had gotten into paintballing of all things and wonderedif I wanted another Hawk or knew anyone who did. The way things go I lost his phone number before I used my hawk to aid a duck hunter who swamped his jon boat on a tidal creek, drowned his electric motor and was rowing into the teeth of an inrushing tide trying to make it back to the landing. He would have been the perfect match for No. 1--wanted to buy mine on the spot...missed connections...he turned out to be Military Intelligence from Fort Lewis who deployed to some nasty hostile place and I always felt bad that I hadn't managed to hang onto that phone number. Never heard the words Marsh Hawk used for boats again until I joined this forum...
 
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