We were hunting a bay in the eastern U.P. for opening weekend. The U.P. opens prior the two southern zones in Michigan, consequently, we get both high hunter numbers and a large cohort of "Duck Commanders" from metro areas of southern Michigan coming up. Steve and I found a spot on a mud flat on a point on the periphery of the bay that held good numbers of birds and ran downriver at 4:00AM to get there and set-up before mad rush of spotlight scouters began to disperse in the pre-dawn. Steve was set-up about a hundred yards north of me, closer to the open water of shipping channel. I dragged my TDB-14' southwest of where I was going to set-up after emptying it of decoys and gear, stashing it tight to a cane stand in a shallow muddy cut to serve as a physical block for the inevitable arrival of the spotlight scouters. Both of use were using canoe chairs set-up in clumps of vegetation in the mud flat, anticipating scattered singles drivin-off the bay from the melee' that would start about five to seven minutes prior the legal shooting time. Steve had picked-up a couple of boxes of "Winfester" Blind Side shells for me at Jay's Sporting Goods on his way north. I noticed as I loaded them that several had very deeply burned seals in the center of the shell crimps.
We watched the mud motor equipped boat carrying to COs swing downriver into the bay about a half-hour after daylight, well too late to catch any of the folks who had to shoot early. I can't remember which of us won our side bet on when the first shot would be fired, but the barrage started-up about ten minutes prior the legal time, quickly building to resemble the pre-landing D-Day bombardment...runs of continuous fire for minutes at a pop! Our approach was to hunt all day and wait for working birds; taking advantage of the hunter traffic as boats left and moved birds. I had to shoo away some hunters who tried to set-up on me just before first light, only getting them to move immediately south of my boat's location. I knew anything approaching from that quadrant would face a gauntlet of shot gun fire. We slowly worked-in small groups of mallards, teal and pintails over the morning until the folks camped behind me left. Minutes after their departure, we saw the COs round the point and head into our spreads. They pulled right into the middle of the two decoy rigs and got out of the boat leaving it in the open...just as the "traffic" on the bay was breaking-up to go in for lunch, moving birds again. GRRR! I decided I would let either of them who wanted to check me make the hike over, since they felt it was not an issue to leave their boat in the middle of our decoys and walk around. Eventually one of the pair walked over to my location. I got up, showed him my license, gun, and shell capacity. He checked the shells I had in the magazine and commented on the shell crimps. I told him that they were leaking shot from several shells over the course of the morning shoot and offered that the manufacturer had erred in their crimp sealing equipment. He decided that I had altered the shot shells, telling me to empty my coat of all ammunition so he could check everything with his magnet. I reached in my outside pocked, scooped up some shells and about half the loose shot that had accumulated in the bottom and dribbled it into his open hands. He didn't see the humor, still demanding to see every shell I had on me, so I did it again with the remainder of my pocket's contents, eventually determining that the shot volume matched the spent shells. Then he demanded that we walk over to my boat for a marine safety check. Wonderful man... It was so nice to see the boot prints of the other group of hunters that had just left...right next to the far side of my boat.
Steve and I settled back in and slowly filled-out over the remainder of the day, aided by a nice day breeze that built as the day advanced.
I sent the remaining shells back to Winchester with the receipt for the two boxes. They reimbursed me for only the shells I sent them, not the shells I shot-up to use before they spilled their contents out the crimp and the ones I tossed in the garbage. Never purchased a shot shell from Winchester since.
