Looking for a way to sneak right up to whatever game you’re after? If you’ve got a creek running through your property, there’s no better way that launching a pirogue or canoe.
Sid Havard exited his truck and left it parked along the banks of Black Lake Creek.
He got in with his buddy, and they drove up the road four or five miles, where they unloaded a pirogue.
“We used to fish (Black Lake) a lot like that,” Havard said. “But the more we fished out of pirogues the more we realized all the critters hardly paid any attention to us.”
Only this time, they were not fishing.
Rather than grabbing a couple fishing poles, they grabbed a couple shotguns.
His buddy at the point up front, Havard skulled the pirogue out into the current where they could slip undetected down the creek.
Several bends later, the high-school classmates saw a giant hog on the side of the creek.
“You should have seen him,” Havard said. “He didn’t even realize we were there until my buddy poured the pellets into him hardly 20 yards away.”
They tried dragging the hog into the pirogue, but quickly realized it wasn’t going to fit.
“We had to float down to our get-out truck and go get a johnboat so we could come back and pick up that hog,” Havard said.
This particular trip was many years ago.
Back then, the lands along the creek were open and anybody could pretty much hunt anywhere they wanted to.
“Now it’s all leased up,” Havard said.
Which brings us to an interesting point: If you belong to a lease large enough to have a major creek running through it or you happen to own some land with a creek big enough to float a pirogue, hunting the land you thought you knew from a pirogue could open up an entire new world of possibilities.
Those possibilities include hogs, deer, squirrels, ducks — anything that takes a liking to a creek bank.
“It’s crazy because those animals and birds just don’t pay much attention to you when you’re floating a creek in a pirogue,” Havard said. “Maybe they think you’re just a log floating down stream. Maybe it’s because you’re not making any sound.
“But whatever it is, there’s no better way to get close to game than floating a creek in a pirogue.”
But it’s not like they don’t even notice you. In Havard’s experience, he’s watched deer looking right at him without bolting.
“It’s kind of like they’re more forgiving when you’re on the water,” he noted.
First things first, though. Let’s see what the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has to say about hunting from a boat.
“It is illegal to take deer while deer are swimming or while the hunter is in a boat with motor attached in operating position,” according to the 2013-14 Hunting Regulations pamphlet. “No person shall take migratory game birds from or by means of any motorboat or sailboat unless the motor has been completely shut off and/or the sail furled and its progress therefrom has ceased.”
Also, there is no prohibition of taking quadrupeds or resident game birds by boat in the Methods of Taking Quadrupeds or Resident Game Birds section.
However, it’s not like you can load your pirogue with all different kinds of guns, shells or bullets because “(d)uring closed deer gun season, it is illegal to possess shotgun shells loaded with slugs or shot larger than BB lead or F steel shot while small game hunting.”
Also, “No person shall take migratory game birds while possessing shot other than steel or other approved shot.”
In other words, it would be illegal to carry slugs or buckshot with you during a float hunt if a closed deer gun season, and it would be illegal for you to carry buckshot with you if you planned on shooting a few ducks along your way.
So rather than freelance like some people might have done in the past to take advantage of every opportunity they came across, float-hunting today has to be more specialized because of these laws.
As far as ducks go, Havard said this used to be his bread-and-butter technique when he first graduated high school.
“We used to slaughter ducks because we could hear the them around the next bend,” he said. “Then we figured out that everywhere there was a curve, it was wading up the acorns so all the ducks would be in every curve.”
He and his buddy would get as close as they could in their pirogue by laying back and allowing the current to kind of drift them in close.
“I guess they thought we were a log because we could literally drift within 20 yards of them,” Havard said. “When we got in close, we would jump up and open fire on them.
“It was crazy how good it was.”
Along the streams Havard used to hunt, he noticed that he killed mainly wood ducks early in the season, but he also had some serious mallard slaughters along the way.
“A lot of these creeks have sloughs that run under acorn trees,” he said. “That’s where your mallards are going to be. They’re not in the current like the wood ducks because they like that slack water.”
When deer hunting out of the pirogue, Havard discovered that a shotgun loaded with No. 4 buckshot was a lot better and more ethical choice than a long-range rifle.
Just about every deer he has killed out of his pirogue over the years fell to No. 4 buckshot.
“A lot of people don’t like a shotgun for deer, but we’ve killed a bunch of them with one because they’re only 20 yards away from you, and you’re just absolutely train wrecking them,” Havard said.
Although No. 4 might sound too small of a shot size, Havard said from close range they go through deer like a buzz saw.
“Yeah, they’re smaller,” he admitted, “but there are so many more of them that they’ll just tear a deer up from short range.
“And we’re not talking about having to look for them. We’re talking about going over there, field dressing him and getting him in the pirogue.”
Squirrels are just as exciting to shoot from a pirogue as ducks and deer. And it’s been Havard’s experience that they don’t sink as fast as some might think. As long as you get over there to them fairly quickly, you’re going to get them.
There are many reasons why animals are attracted to the banks of a creek, the most important of which has to be more abundant food.
“First off, animals are drawn to the water’s edge,” Havard said. “I think some of the attractions is that these acorn trees seem to always have better mast, even during drought years, because they’re always going to have a root system that reaches the water.”
Havard has also discovered that soft mast produces better near a creek than it does up in the hills. Take muscadines, for example: He’s seen lots of empty vines that just don’t make in drier areas, but head to the edge of the water and all those vines are going to be full of berries.
“And there’s the obvious reason that deer are going to use the creek as a travel route,” Havard said. “But I can tell you, every deer I’ve shot from a pirogue has been feeding, so food has to be the No. 1 reason.”
Admittedly, it’s been a few years since Havard has hunted from his pirogue. Older ears have made it harder to hear the tell-tale noises of preening ducks or deer munching on acorns.
“What I would tell you, though,” he said, “is that if you have a good lease or your own property, here’s something you might want to do that’s outside the box that could be a game changer for you.”
You might try it as a fluke first, but the experience is going to make you pay more attention to it as a viable alternative to hunting the same plot from the same box stand day after day during deer season.
