On a cold winter afternoon at dusk in the late 1950's, I shot my first waterfowl over a freezing salt water creek. My friend and I stripped down to our long johns and swam out to retrieve the birds. Then, while our long johns stiffened with ice, we had to wait for my friend's mom to come and drive us home. That night, after a warm up and change into something dry, I gutted and skinned the Brant.
Late the next afternoon the bird was put in the oven. After about an hour the kitchen started to smell foul and the bird was moved to the back porch. Overnight some hapless critter dragged the Brant some 100 feet from the porch before abandoning it uneaten. Not even the Crows were interested in feasting on it.
That experience was enough to delay my next encounter with waterfowl for nearly a decade until I was treated to a tasty meal on the NS Savannah.