One of the things that make slipping up on game in a pirogue possible is silence.
Rather than alarming every animal within earshot by smashing leaves and cracking sticks, slipping in on a boat gives you the ultimate silent approach.
Radio silence, the Army calls it.
As many deer as Sid Havard has seen from his pirogue that have just looked at him and gone right back to feeding, there have been some that were alarmed.
“I don’t think it had anything to do with me,” he said. “Rather, I think it had more to do with an unfortunate banging of the paddle on the pirogue. Or maybe dropping a shell in the bottom of the boat.”
It didn’t take him many times of realizing he was spooking game through accidental boat mishaps before Havard figured out how to silence his pirogue.
“I used to take a piece of shag carper and cut it so it fit perfectly in the bottom of my pirogue,” he said. “And I took some of that PVC pipe insulation and wrapped it around my paddle handle.
“This way, if I did make a mistake bang something around or bump something, it didn’t make nearly as much sound. I can tell you that it worked, and I started running off a lot fewer deer.”
