About 15 years ago my duck hunting buddy and me were hunting in the floodwaters of the MS. River when it was 23 ft. above flood stage. We were right on the edge of a big open spot in a 12 ft. aluminum boat. the boat blind had fallen down and all we had for camo was the netting laying in the bottom of the boat, we were basically sitting in the open. We were in a major migration of Widgeon. It was just unbelievable, they were pouring into the decoys, oblivious to the two idiots sitting in the open. We got ready to go and i pulled the burlap off the outboard and heard a plop! It was my 870SP.
I tied a decoy to the tree with the weak hope of coming back to find it. The river dropped an average of 1 ft. every day for the next 3 weeks and we decided, without much hope, to go try to find it. We found the tree with the decoy up in the top and I got out and carefully walked around. "I think I just stepped on it". I pulled it out and it didn't look bad at all, the parkerizing worn in some spots but very little rust. I took it back to the shop, threw the wood in the oven on low, and ran about a gallon of diesel through it at the tractor pump. Pulled the wood out of the oven a few hours later and hunted with it that afternoon! It now wears synthetic and has a Birdsong Black-T finish.
I tied a decoy to the tree with the weak hope of coming back to find it. The river dropped an average of 1 ft. every day for the next 3 weeks and we decided, without much hope, to go try to find it. We found the tree with the decoy up in the top and I got out and carefully walked around. "I think I just stepped on it". I pulled it out and it didn't look bad at all, the parkerizing worn in some spots but very little rust. I took it back to the shop, threw the wood in the oven on low, and ran about a gallon of diesel through it at the tractor pump. Pulled the wood out of the oven a few hours later and hunted with it that afternoon! It now wears synthetic and has a Birdsong Black-T finish.