South Jersey Mud...

C

Colin Fitzpatrick

Active member
It'll eat you alive!

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Had to work hard for them this morning but still managed a black duck, a greenwing, a buffie, and a pair of mallards. Funny how we curse at the mud when were hunting, but the truth is there's nowhere else I'd rather be than in that stuff chasing ducks!
 
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Aggreed I love my salt marsh even though it is challenging place to hunt.

I have heard stories of people getting stuck and the tide coming up out west.

Two Christmas's ago I took my little cousin out for a quick shoot before family obligations. I had the mud motor and it was low tide, It does ok being on a deep v but prolonged runs over mud flats = a little pushing. We were 10 ft from the edge so we hopped out to push. We were going well and were almost to deep water when the boat got really heavy. As I jokingly yelled to my cousin to put some elbow grease into it, I looked over the boat to his side and all I see are two eyes and a baseball hat staring back at me. He had stepped into a muck hole and was swallowed up to his hips. I went to his side and tried pulling him out, no good. I tried digging with my bare hands then the oar, nope. Now I'm getting worried, it's 5 degrees out with a stiff wind. My hands are frozen and every thing I own looks as though it was dipped into chocolate. We were able to squeeze him out of the waders and get him in the boat. Now he is wet, waderless, and stuck in the boat until the tide comes up enough for me to push the now muck covered boat to deeper water. thankfuully it was incoming tide and we only had to wait a half hour. We watched the sun come up next to a fire in my family room, drinking a hot cup of coffee and dreaming about watching birds pour into the blocks or what was awaiting for us under the Christmas tree.

Be careful out there and good luck.
 
Al,
Yes we usually take my buddies lab which saves from having to constantly walk to the boats and back, but we didnt have him with us today. Where we hunt the tide drop is very significant...at high tide the whole meadow floods but at low you can hardly float a boat in the ditch! We had a falling tide this morning and tried to stick it out a few extra minutes, which ended up with us having to walk the boats halfway back!
 
Nice going Colin. I am very familiar with your predicament! After age 50, you avoid this like the plague. I used to hunt on one of the lower tidal creeks on the river, and that is the finest grain mud you will find. All of the baseball rub down mud comes from there, a little trivia fact for everyone. When I hunted there, I never washed my dog, I used to let him get good and dry and then just brush it out, it would come off like dust. The brackish water mud-Delaware River and Bay areas- is much muckier than the coastal salt mud for the most part.
 
Yeah Greg I know what you mean the mud comes off like dust! But my mom still makes me give the dog a bath because she says brushing the dust out isn't good enough......
 
Out here, the Nisqually Delta mud can be bottomless--and the tides treacherous. More than one duck hunter has failed to return. The worst case I know of is two who tried to cross a muddy slough between two patches of grass--and both bogged to their waists. The tide was coming in. They weren't found until the following neap tide, still anchored in the mud...
 
That looks a lot like the nasty mud down here on the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta.
I learned very quickly not to get out of the boat in certain spots!!!

Nice mixed bag too, sound a lot like what we shoot except trade the blacks & mallards for mottled ducks and gadwalls.
 
Cool, we fished this weekend. Check out my post.

Out in the Bay south of the interstate, its not bad, pretty sandy. But north of the interstate getting out of the boat can really put you in danger. There are only one or two spots I even think about it and then I don't let go of the boat.
 
Good Night! LOL... There are 100's of places I'd rather be chasing ducks than in that mess... WOW! That's crazy... glad you returned safe and with prizes in hand...
 
Most of my salt marsh spots have pretty hard sand bottoms. It can get mucky in spots, but nothing like that.

I hereby promise to never again complain about beaver pond mud. LOL!
 
What ever happened to the mud walkers that they use to sell in the back of Wildfowl magazine back in the late 80s? I believe they were sold out of NH. I have experienced similar silt in salt marshes in MA. Funniest experience was a partner that brought along hip boots and not waders.
 
Colin~

In conditions like that, you should remember the line from the first Indiana Jones movie:

"Looks dangerous - you go first!"

Nice Sneakbox, too - who built it?

All the best,

SJS
 
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