Tiny coastal communities sleep along the shorelines of North Carolina's expansive sounds and the rivers that discharge into them. While some are awakening to the influx of outsiders who want to live or vacation near the water, many are still quiet little burgs.

The good thing about these yet-to-be discovered places, complete with swarms of biting mosquitoes and gnats that once served as natural "Yankee repellent," is that they lie beside some very big water. Not many people live in Hobucken or Vandemere, compared with places nearer the oceanfront beaches. But in wintertime, they swell in population -- not a population of human beings, but rather waterfowl. Diving ducks and sea ducks flock to the area as they have before the first European colony became "lost" at Manteo.

Chris Davis, age 19, has several blinds in Bay River and Jones Bay. His family has owned land there many years. Special local laws apply to Pamlico County shore blinds and can change at any time. The goal is protecting the last remaining private properties and the livelihoods of coastal guides. Davis works at an exclusive duck club at the mouth of the Bay River and also at a Vandemere farm supply store. He doesn't guide hunters from his blinds. He chooses to hunt them for his own pleasure and that of his friends.

Whereas a couple of seasons ago, outsiders were not interested in hunting the hordes of divers and sea ducks, sportsmen have discovered the Pamlico area and some now pay big money for hunting leases or buy shoreline properties outright, displacing the guides who traditionally were also commercial fishermen. The county blind law requires that anyone setting up a floating blind must be at least 500 yards from an occupied shore blind. But there is support for extending the law to apply to any shore blind, occupied or not.

I was hunting one of Davis' shore blinds on a tiny island, along with Jimmy Millard and his sons, Chris, 16 and Matt, 19. While Davis lives at the coast, the Millards live near Goldsboro. They help Davis maintain and build his blinds in exchange for hunting rights. Also along was Floydie Harris, a 17-year-old family friend.

"Keeping up blinds is a continuous process," Davis said. "Every time a hurricane hits, you lose your blinds. Sometimes you have to start all over and rebuild them from scratch."

The blind was generous, consisting of posts driven into the organic-laden soil and a wooden framework that supported cedar branches. But to hide several more hunters, the main wooden framework had a wing wall constructed of hay bales stacked on top of one another. The entire affair offered complete concealment for a large group of hunters and large groups of hunters are a necessity to get the most out of a diving duck hunt.

Bag limits for scaup, the main diving duck in bays, are much lower than in past years. Locally called "bluebill" or "blackhead," the two scaup species are suffering a long-term decline of about 1 percent per year, so harvest restrictions are in effect that allow only two scaup to be taken per hunter per day. A good shot will fill a bluebill bag limit with one decoying flock, so having plenty of hunters along helps lengthen the hunt.