Charms, Miracles, and Outlaws

Charms...as in "the third time is NOT a charm"! For Miracles and Outlaws, read on....

Well, we got up early this morning to head to Vicksburg to try another duck hole that Scott felt would be more promising than the reservoir. One of our friends, Jay, met us in Clinton to go with us. We got there, loaded everything in the boat...and started on our way....thirty minutes later....we were still on our way....and an hour later we were STILL on our way. At this point I was thinking, "How much longer for Pete's sake!", but of course I didn't say anything. When I go hunting with Scott, I've got to be "easy" or else I'll be "too much trouble" to take next time!

Finally, Scott informed me that he thought we passed our turn a while back but now he was looking for another spot to go. "Oh, Oh, REALLY!....Good GRIEF! (thinking to myself)" I thought we had come to HUNT not RIDE! Still not saying anything, I hung in there...at this point becoming pretty uncomfortable in the cold and wind. And it was also day light by this point (we are usually in our spot and already set up before the sun comes up). Eventually we just decided to stop somewhere and see what happened. We saw a few ducks flying in this one spot and decided this place was as good as any (because we hadn't seen many ducks all morning).

We sat there about an hour not seeing much. I got a little practice in on my duck calling...I still need LOTS of practice. None of us ever even pulled the trigger. After about an hour we decided this wasn't cutting it. We packed up everything and then Scott got back in "scouting" mode again. By this time I was definitely not in the mood to "scout". The wind was blowing 20 mph on top of the boat going who knows how many mph?!?!! I was COLD! And scouting was not what I came for.

After another 45 minutes or so of boat riding we were turning back around in a large tributary we had explored and Scott decides to check our gas situation....

WE HAD NONE!!! We were at least another 45 minutes to an hour away from the boat ramp...and we were in the middle of NO where! NO WHERE!! I was just preparing myself to get ready to paddle. To be honest, I wasn't frustrated...I was thinking, "Good, now maybe we can go home...even if we have to paddle home!" ha! Scott guessed that we had probably an eighth of a gallon of gas left. I didn't know how far that would get us but I was ready to see.

Scott, on the other hand, had different plans. I could tell he was in deep thought...then he said, "I saw a deer camp just upstream."

"What good does that do US?? Besides, we don't even know those people???"

He replied, "Yeah, I don't think anyone is there!"

"OH GEEEEEEZ!"

So we headed back UPstream (AWAY from the boat ramp).....and by some miracle we had enough gas to make it to this deer camp. And by another miracle...there were SEVERAL gallons of gas sitting around the camp. I couldn't believe it!! We were in the middle of NO WHERE with no gas and there just happened to be this deserted deer camp on the bank of the river, and it had several jugs of gas??!??! How Scott even had the thought that they would have gas just lying around their deer camp is beyond me! But I know one thing, the Buck Bayou Deer Camp saved the day! So now we are officially OUTLAWS that stole some poor guy's generator gas from his camp house porch.

The whole time Scott was standing in the back of the boat pouring the gas in the tank (which seemed like forever), I was scanning the deer camp, just waiting on someone to pull up or someone to step out of one of those camp houses and start shooting at us. I'm not a very brave Outlaw!!

Scott promised me we would come back one day and find out who's gas we "borrowed" and pay him back.

We made it home, safe and sound. No ducks.

Happy Robert E. Lee Day.