[dranrab]

Seems that some of those among us hunt from their skiffs. You have heard me mention my job as a Recreational Boating Safety Program Manager for the Coast Guard. Last year along the Gulf we had far too many SAR cases involving hunters. There were a few fatalities, including a family member of one of my college buds. This year I launched a broad and far reaching multi-faceted boating safety and preparedness for hunters campaign.

Safety is never a fun topic, but shows like this do a good job of making it palatable. Whether you hunt from your boat or not, the take away preparedness lessons are good ones. I think you'll appreciate the marsh landscape from the cockpit of a helo. Fly with us as we search for a stranded duck hunter.

Since your tax dollars are at work, I welcome your feedback.

 

[jlindsley]

Yes I put a planket ($20 bucks from Lowe’s dark green) over my salt marsh. Then 2 or 3 mesh camo over that.

 

[permitchaser]

I would if i could. Most hunter use the same safety as if they where on land. I think hunting marsh hens would be fun

 

[GG34]

Yes I put a planket ($20 bucks from Lowe’s dark green) over my salt marsh. Then 2 or 3 mesh camo over that.

Where do you get the mesh?

 

[Charles Hadley]

Seems that some of those among us hunt from their skiffs. You have heard me mention my job as a Recreational Boating Safety Program Manager for the Coast Guard. Last year along the Gulf we had far too many SAR cases involving hunters. There were a few fatalities, including a family member of one of my college buds. This year I launched a broad and far reaching multi-faceted boating safety and preparedness for hunters campaign.

Safety is never a fun topic, but shows like this do a good job of making it palatable. Whether you hunt from your boat or not, the take away preparedness lessons are good ones. I think you'll appreciate the marsh landscape from the cockpit of a helo. Fly with us as we search for a stranded duck hunter.

Since your tax dollars are at work, I welcome your feedback.

Great idea

 

[Charles Hadley]

Where do you get the mesh?

Academy, Bass pro,cabella

 

[Surffshr]

Great perspective given in this video, and I will have survival blankets on the skiff from here out.

 

[omegadef]

Seems that some of those among us hunt from their skiffs. You have heard me mention my job as a Recreational Boating Safety Program Manager for the Coast Guard. Last year along the Gulf we had far too many SAR cases involving hunters. There were a few fatalities, including a family member of one of my college buds. This year I launched a broad and far reaching multi-faceted boating safety and preparedness for hunters campaign.

Safety is never a fun topic, but shows like this do a good job of making it palatable. Whether you hunt from your boat or not, the take away preparedness lessons are good ones. I think you'll appreciate the marsh landscape from the cockpit of a helo. Fly with us as we search for a stranded duck hunter.

Since your tax dollars are at work, I welcome your feedback.

I grew up in the town they filmed this in. I used to be able to walk to that lighthouse from my house, about 3 miles down the beach of Lake Pontchartrain. You weren't supposed to go to that lighthouse. I used to fish behind the house every single day. Weekends would be spent bassfishing in the Tchefuncte river before my dads boat was stolen.

Now I live a little over an hour away from the closest saltwater. I'm building a boat now so I can get back to the good life.

On the topic of the video, my godfather is an avid duck hunter in the Atchafalaya basin. Where they hunt is about a 2 hour ride from the nearest launch. Every time we went, we would have a flare gun on the boat. I don't know if he had a radio or not, but I would imagine he did, being that he kept three spare plugs for the boat on board. I will definitely share this video with him. It was often that the tide would go out while you were there and you were completely stuck until it came back in. If an accident were to happen, we could very quickly be stranded and be in need of your help.

People seem to forget about the coast guard until they need them, and because of this you probably don't hear this enough, but thank you for your service. Keep saving lives.

 

[dranrab]

I never rest comfortably in this position. Boating fatalities have not seen a statistically significant decline in decades. When I came into this position a year ago I decided that if we wanted to change outcomes, we'd have to change methods. Social media like this has allowed me to cast a much broader net. I don't like to use the cliche "out of the box" language, but we simply have to do things differently.

The silver emergency blankets and orange bandannas aren't the kind of items that are typically highlighted as having value, let alone signaling value, in the maritime realm. This was the first time I have set up a demo where we used them. On the first pass, the helo didn't locate the hunters. When the blanket and bandanna were used passively the air crew saw the boaters immediately after completing their search first pattern turn. When I talked to the pilot following the shoot, he sand the praises of the blanket and bandanna. Make them part of your kit!

 

[dranrab]

Great perspective given in this video, and I will have survival blankets on the skiff from here out.

At 3 bucks per pop, and given they take up so little space, there's really no reason not to. I ordered a dozen orange bandannas off ebay for under 10 bucks. They have a number of uses in emergency situations.

 

[dranrab]

This may be of interest to some of you. Doing this cost the taxpayers money. Our PA team has a way of establishing a dollar value to the media exposure we get. It can't measure all media sources, but with the ones we could we were over $50,000. It more than paid for itself.