We are running sea duck hunts on the Atlantic Ocean with Scooters and Long Tails being primary targets. We had to fight heavy ice flows and ice jambs to get the boats into the water so meeting prior to daylight was out of the question. Our planned meet time was 6:15 with an estimated departure of 7:00am. Until both boats were finally put into the water over rocks and ice we were ready to go. We had some 2 to 3 foot chop with ice in the inlet but had no issue navigating our way offshore. Our 23′ Parker with twin Mercury Optimax’s ran perfect even in the 30 degree water. Our set up was in about 40 feet of water with the Banks 2 man revolution being anchored on 150 feet of rope. We set 75 decoys and loaded our hunters. The shooting was quick and on top of them with surf scooters, common scooters and black scooters being primary targets. We were also buzzed by blue bills, long tails, common merganser and we saw a flock of snow geese in the Ocean. Our hunters managed a 2 limit shoot very quickly.
