'Couple o' years ago, we kept gettin' just ahead of this one guy. No matter what he did, we managed to barely outwit him. ('Barely' is good enough, though). 'Got to be a friendly game of cat and mouse.
We knew it would only be a matter of time before he camped-out. It was opening day of the second split and the earliest we'd ever seen anybody at the ramp was 5:00. So we figured this guy would be sittin' in his boat 15 minutes before that......waiting on us.
Well......we pulled off the road about a mile from the landing, un-did the straps, had all the gear in the boat, and proceeded to the ramp in stealth mode. Then 1/4-mile from the ramp I floored-it.
Poor fella had his boat in the water....everything was ready to go......but he made the mistake of bringin' his girlfreind and a bottle of bourbon along to keep him warm. Fortunately for us, it was in the upper 20's that night.
Well, the combination of Old Charter, a warm woman and a heated vehicle with reclining seats proved to be his downfall......'cause when we blasted in there at 2:30 for the 'surprise attack', it caught the poor guy
SO off-guard, he knew there wasn't anything he could do. The windows were so fogged-up, we weren't sure how many folks were in there at first. (We figured 2.......and ruled-out the possibility of it being the waterfowler and an overly-anxious retriever that can't tell time). The engine was runnin' but there was no sign of movement......of any kind. We were a little concerned, but proceeded with our assault on the boat ramp.
I think we were down the ramp and in the water before they realized they had company. I fired-up the outboard while Anne parked the truck and we shoved-off about the time their dome light finally shattered the darkness. We were 50yds out before somebody finally stumbled out of the vehicle, mumblin' things we were better-off imagining, over the chug of our outboard.
'Bout 15 minutes after we were set-up in the hole, waiting for sunrise..... here he comes. I let him come all the way up a 400yd-long stump field. Imagine the anticipation he must've felt......the closer he got, thinking we MIGHT have gone somewhere else......and that it's lookin' like he's got this hole all to himself.......just 25yds more and about 13 more snags, and he'll know for sure whether he'll have the place to himself after-all, or
NOT!!!....('nuttin' like the cold blast of a Q-beam across the bow to completely demoralize a fella that's gone a disoriented 400yds in roughly 45 minutes with a 20-degree chill, a hangover and no breakfast).
What made it so bad on the poor guy, was that he had marked a trail thru the stump field with Bud-Light cans in trees. Funny......somebody found'em the day before (on my scouting run) and moved'em over, 'bout 10 feet.
(Heck....I better shut-up, or folks'll start using my own tactics in retribution against me.)
He took it perty-good, though......but yelled, "YA"LL ENJOY THIS ONE.........I'LL GIT YO SORRY @$$ NEXT TIME". (hehehehe) See how much fun, hunting on public land can be? It's what you make it.
