{"id":464,"date":"2010-02-01T13:41:19","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T18:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=464"},"modified":"2010-02-02T15:11:56","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T20:11:56","slug":"gull-island-gunning-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=464","title":{"rendered":"Gull Island Gunning Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

You often hear about how people in the arts have to survive early on in their careers. Some work in restaurants or construction. I’ve been there… done that, but I also had some other interesting lines of work to make ends meet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back around 1975, when there was still considerable waterfowl hunting here, a neighbor asked if I wanted to earn some extra money. It turned out that they needed another waterfowl hunting guide, with no experience necessary. Uneasy at first, I quickly learned to emulate what the experienced guides did. They prepared boats, blinds and decoys among other things.<\/span><\/p>\n

The work was tough, cold and wet. Hunting trips required 24 hour service, plus awakening at 4 AM to get hunters ready. But as with many things in retrospect, it was a pretty valuable and unique experience. I was a licensed guide at Gull Island for 5 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The lodge at Gull Island had four bunk rooms, a mud room for gear and guns, a kitchen and dining area, a rec room with television, and a separate privy with generator room on the north side. It was a particularly comfortable building, especially considering its location, miles out in the Pamlico Sound.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The interior was equipped with heaters, wall lamps and a refrigerator all run on propane. In the above photo, I am at the head of the table in red shirt. We were treated to some first-class hearty meals out there.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Raymond Midgett was one of the hunting guides that I worked with. Here he runs the 24 foot skiff, that used a reliable 4 cylinder air-cooled Wisconsin engine\u00a0<\/strong>for power. It was slow, but got the job done. Thus it was named <\/span>Anytime. <\/strong>It was built in Avon by Willy Austin.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Here Anytime <\/em>tows one of the decoy skiffs to pick up a hunting rig.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Mark McCracken and Burt Hooper pick up after a day of hunting. Burt amazed me with his sharp vision. He could spot a flock of ducks a mile away and tell you what type of fowl they were, before you could even see them.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Raymond Midgett throws out a stake blind rig, while I drag the skiff through the thigh deep water.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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This image was made of the same stake blind, taken from the north deck of the club house. I used a Nikon F2 with a Century 650mm lens attached. It shows shot hitting the water while the hunters fired at the “cripples”.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Michael Peele is a native of Hatteras, and was a regular hunter at Gull Island. Here he poses with a skiff full of redhead decoys that I painted and rigged with lines and lead weights. Gull Island is where I learned to tie a bowline knot.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Manson Meekins of Avon was also a regular visitor to Gull Island.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>The sink box, also called a battery box, required a lot of work to install, maintain and rig. We hunted three different sink boxes around the island. They lured waterfowl and worked extremely well.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Alex Kotarides (standing on deck) was the owner of Gull Island Gunning Club. He also owned a huge bakery in Norfolk. Here he stands with nephew Chris (far left) and bakery employee Fred Keitch (far right). Alex was a very generous man. Every Christmas he would bring some local villagers turkeys and hams for the holidays. He also loaned me $1100 so that I could buy my first high quality telephoto lens.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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This is a shot of Gull Island Gunning Club taken during it’s glory days. I used the 400mm Novoflex lens (mentioned above) mounted to my F2 while standing in the marsh of Bay Landing<\/em> on Hatteras. Gull Island is two miles away. Around 1990 while being renovated, the house accidentally burned to the ground. Today all that remains is the island, an old dock and a lot of memories.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You often hear about how people in the arts have to survive early on in their careers. Some work in restaurants or construction. I’ve been there… done that, but I also had some other interesting lines of work to make ends meet. Back around 1975, when there was still considerable waterfowl hunting here, a neighbor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,22,32,26,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-buildings","category-hunting","category-outer-banks","category-pamlico-sound"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":481,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions\/481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}