A buddy and I decided to duck hunt by kayak on the Colorado river outside of Austin in Dec 18. We made sure we were legal on everything, found a nice big bend in the river ahead of time on google maps, checked the river flow online, and made a plan to put in upstream of the bend a couple of miles and then paddle back when we were done. This was the first time we had hunted this area and it was treacherous to get the kayaks down to the water in the dark, so we decided to just put in at daylight and treat it as more of a scouting trip than a full blown hunt.
We get there in the morning and the river is screaming. Apparently they had opened some of the gates at the dam up river over night. I have spent a decent amount of time on the river in my kayak, but this was my buddy's first time. I asked if he had eaten his Wheaties that morning, and explained how we would have the paddle of our life to get back if we actually went through with our plan. We decided to go through with it, but developed a backup plan of floating down to the next public put in spot if we had to. That would be a 3-4 hour float down river. We would just have to call one of our wives to pick us up if we had to go that route. (Something neither of us wanted to do.) We get done with the hunt which ended up with zero birds, and start the paddle back upstream. My limited experience allowed me to read the current, and pick slower parts of the river to paddle in. I look back, and my buddy is just paddling straight up the middle of the river right into the teeth of the current. I didn't dare stop paddling to call him, and it was too loud to yell to him. I just hoped he took notice of how I was navigating the currents. Nope, he just had his head down, and was paddling with all him might LOL. I finally get back to our launching point with muscles exhausted, and he is about 200 yards behind me. I see him just sit up in the kayak, and I knew he was done. I dig my phone out of my dry case just in time for him to call me and tell me he is done and floating down to the next public launch. The only issue with that is he's never been to that launch, and it can be a bit hidden if you don't know what to look for. I send him a pin on google maps, and let him know I'd been there waiting for him flagging him down. Then I start to figure out how to do the two man job of getting my kayak 200 yards back up the truck by myself. I ended up completely unloading my kayak, and then carrying it on my back. I definitely got my workout in for the day. In the meantime, my buddy had called his wife to explain why we would be back later than planned. His wife is worried, and tracks him by his phone after that. Halfway through his phone dies. Now his wife is EXTREMELY worried, and he doesn't have a way to know when he's getting close to the next public put in spot. After a few phone calls from the worried wife who has also alerted my wife, I drive to the spot and flag my buddy who makes it over to the bank at the launch just before the current pushes him past it. We get him loaded up, and home with no other issues except lectures from our wives about being more careful.
TLDR: River duck hunt goes bad due to crazy river currents and dead cell phones, but all ends well.
Hitched a ride to the interstate where I met the tow truck and AAA paid to have to the truck unlocked. One time I was kinda glad to be hunting in an area that was a bit crowded.
