McCauly, who has hunted on Harris Lake since 1987, said one of the keys to conquering waterweeds is having the right type of outboard.

"I come out here ahead of the hunting season and use the motor to clear a hole in the hydrilla," McCauly said. "Most hunters can't even get through the thick stuff with their outboards because they overheat when the vegetation blocks the water intakes. I have a motor that is designed to cool even in the thick hyacinth because it has special intake ports."

Besides chopping a hole in the vegetation for setting out decoys, McCauly thinks it makes the bottom clean enough so divers can successfully hunt for aquatic clams and the other invertebrates that make up a large part of their diets. While ringnecks feed on vegetation as well as mollusks, other divers like scaup are primarily carnivorous.

McCauly and Bohanon set out their decoys one at a time, and they are tied to single anchors. They have a system that allows them to set them out or pick them up in about an hour. The water in the backs of the coves where they hunt is shallow, so they don't have to deal with winding in long decoy lines as are necessary when hunting the deeper water on the lake's many points. Their lines are about 20 feet long and have special anchor systems that allow them to wind the line around the anchors instead of the decoys.

Still, they must constantly clean the weights and lines of vegetation or they would soon weigh down the boat, covered with the soggy mass.

Putting out that many decoys seems an extreme effort to most hunters, and is beyond their ability, finances or desire to accomplish. However, such a huge spread of decoys is not unusual to see on many of the larger lakes across the country or even at the various sounds along the North Carolina coast.

"My hunting parties bag between 700 and 1,000 ducks at Harris Lake each year," McCauly said. "I have had 14 hunters fill their duck limits by 11 o'clock. Most hunters will get plenty of shots during a hunt."

Besides getting to a good spot before other hunters and setting out huge decoy spreads, McCauly said part of the secret is staying late.

"We stay all day," he said. "Most hunters hunt during the morning for a couple of hours, then head off to work or home. By being the only hunter left on the lake, your decoys are the only game in town. You can decoy any willing duck that comes down the lake."

Lake hunting regulations prohibit the construction of any permanent blinds. McCauly explained that this means he cannot even leave a single cut piece of tree limb or brush standing when he leaves his hunting area for the day.

"We hunt out of the boat or line the bank with pallets for hunters to stand on at the edge of the water," he said. "I use quick set-up blinds and place vegetation around them. I can hunt several hunters out of one blind. But they have to be good hunters. Anyone who shows their face is going to flare off some ducks. Wearing a camouflage face net or mask is a good idea for someone who wants to look around and can't keep his head down."

Divers are tough ducks to kill outright. Therefore, McCauly uses a shotgun up to the task. Since he shoots a lot of shells during a season, he uses steel shot, which is less expensive than other non-toxic duck loads. He shoots a 10-gauge shotgun loaded with No. 2 and No. 3 shot.

"Most of the shots are close at about 20 or 30 yards," McCauly said. "But I want to be able to kill any cripples before they can swim away. Drake (McCauly's Labrador retriever) can catch some of them. But when they get out in that vegetation, it can take him a long time to pick them up."

While Drake can retrieve dead diving ducks and hard-hit cripples, hunting divers usually means McCauly heads out in a boat to help his dog retrieve downed ducks. Downing multiples out of one flock are the rule rather than the exception.

McCauly tends to hunt off the shoreline of the game land so he can leave his boat free for chasing down cripples. After everyone is in the blind, he hides the boat in the back of a cove and camouflages it with a fabric covering or a few tree limbs.

"You want to get on those cripples in a hurry," McCauly said. "Every minute you're out there, you're scaring other ducks away."

Harris Lake is open for waterfowl hunting on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day and the opening and closing day of the applicable waterfowl seasons.

Hunters can hunt from boat blinds on the lake. Any boat used by a Harris Lake duck hunter should be large enough to handle the conditions. A 14-foot johnboat can be used on calm days. But the wind can create big waves. Hunters also need to carry as many decoys as they can to attract diving ducks and that usually means they need much larger watercraft. Hunters commonly use boats of up to 22 feet in length because they want to be on the lake when the weather is at its worst.

Some of the unsuccessful hunters at Harris Lake don't like the fact that McCauly sets out large spreads the evening before a hunt. But that's his method of staying within the rules and having excellent luck with Harris Lake ducks.

"There's nothing stopping anyone from having the same success that I have," he said. "Like anything else in life, you get out what you put into any effort. I found that it takes lots of decoys to be successful at Harris, so I do what it takes to get to a good spot and set them out. Hard work and dedication is the secret to success at Harris."

For more information, contact Darrell McCauly at (910) 486-0241.