Gear breakdown.
Dive Bomb Blind Bag and the Sims Gore-Tex waders kept things dry, provided I did my part. Even when the boat flipped all my stuff inside the bag was left dry. This included my phone, wallet, licenses, ammo, calls…etc BTW – If you are in a boat with even a chance of flipping, roll the top of the bag down and secure it. Also want to make sure anything else is properly tied down that you don’t want to lose.
Gloves – Some people like wearing them and some not so much. I like it for the added grip in the wet conditions and have gone to wearing a synthetic glove that has either a Nitrile or Latex coating on the palm and front of the fingers. They offer a great grip, pack small and dry out quickly. They are also great when processing the geese and cleanup is easy. If it was colder, I’d opt for something with more insulation, but it would need to be near freezing before I would consider making a switch. Keep in mind that both my arms were soaked with river water and I had no problems standing in the river (low activity level) without my hands getting cold.
Korker wader boots (or just about any wader boot) and a wader staff are critical pieces of kit for anyone looking to do hunting in a flowing body of water. Make sure the boots don’t have a felt sole, they need to be hard rubber. The felt ones are not legal for use in many areas because they can transport disease in their porous material from one body of water to another. The staff I’m using is nothing special, I believe it’s an old walking stick that my wife bought years ago. I’ve pressed into service for this purpose, and it works great. Plus, it saved me about $150 on a “real” wader staff. You could make your own from a piece of cedar and finish it with some Australian timber oil, but the pricey ones have the advantage of collapsing down for easy transport and are much lighter.
I used an Alps Outdoors Legend Layout Blind for the first time this year and it was really good. Easy to set up and grass in. Kept me off the ground, sitting in a suspended chair. I was able to have my shotgun at the ready with my blind bag between my feet. It would be an ideal cold weather option for a layout blind. One caveat is that I did use and extra pillow to prop my head up and stowed it on the seat when packing up for the day, so I don’t forget it next time. Sorry, no picture of that.
Muck boots – I need new ones badly and the guys hunting the farm field have recommended the Dive Bomb version with 400-gram insulation. I’m comparing those to a few others right now like the KUIU, LaCrosse, Bog and Muck.
Do I need to mention the Benelli SBE3 and Federal Black Cloud TSS BB/7? The SBE3 took an underwater journey for about 30 seconds when I flipped the kayak. I did nothing more than dump the water from the barrel, cycle the action a few times and it was working perfectly. And TSS…I think you all know where I stand on this, but if you have questions…feel free to ask.
Knifes, knives and more knives. How many knives to bring on a trip? For this one it was only two, plus a Leatherman. The Havalon Piranta with a couple of spare blades tucked in the same pouch as the Leatherman makes for a compact kill kit. Add in some plastic zip top bags and it’s done. The other knife is just a little folder with a 2.5” blade that I keep in my pocket when I’m not hunting it gets used for complex tasks like opening boxes and cutting para cord.
Packing…I overpacked. Always do, although I did better this time. Hard to predict what weather conditions may come about so it was mostly extra clothes, the gear was just about right. That will wrap up this past week of hunting along with all the gear I saw fit to highlight. I don’t recall any gear or clothing item not performing up to expectations, but if I think of something I’ll add it in.
Thanks again to everyone for following along. BeeMaa
