Covert names: let's hear 'em

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Kevin McCormack

Two more waterfowl spots:

Seneca Breaks, the first significant set of rapids beginning the fall line on the Potomac River above the Great Falls. All types of flotsam and jetsam get caught in the rocks and pile up. We would paddle out across the face of the slack water to the middle of the river and put about a dozen duck decoys upriver in the slack water and hide in the blowdowns, which made perfect cover for pass shooting. The year I made an impossible shot on a beautiful Blackduck highballing over the rig, only to lose it in the rapids below, was the year I bought my first Labrador retriever.

Rowser's Ford, the shallow water across the face of the lower Seneca Breaks, where Jeb Stuart brought 5,000 confederate cavalry and troops across the river by moonlight on the way to Gettysburg. He made a fatal detour to attack Rockville, MD, which deprived Lee of his intelligence reports which cost Lee dearly in the epic battle that followed. You could wade out across the ford, but ice creepers or golf spikes were an absolute must, and cover was scant compared to the Breaks above. Scrambling to retrieve a kill could result in a quick ice bath, and a lively cripple no dog could run down in the shallow but swift rapids.

I love the names and stories for your coverts. If the rest of the world understood what these places meant, they’d be crawling over the landscape. Best to be a hunter who knows their value and holds the faith.