July 25, 2017
By Skip Knowles
Shotguns and saltwater don't mix. WildFowl Editor, Skip Knowles. snapped a shot of this rust-eaten 1998 Benelli Super Black Eagle (SBE) in Jan. 2016. It is not a relic, it just looks like one. It belongs to Todd Shiyou, host of Mississippi Outdoors TV, and is his every-day duck killer.
"Before I got that Benelli, we would take cheap pumps and sand them down and paint them black and hope they'd last a year," Shiyou says. "Salt water eats them up here, turns them orange in one day on the coast.
"In '05 when Katrina hit, all my guns stayed underwater for 14 hours, and the first thing I got out was my SBE. Pulled it out, tore it apart and hunted teal with it three weeks later. We didn't have a house but we went duck hunting.
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I was the first in my group to get a Benelli and now we all have them. I have seen so many guns fall victim to the marsh. Before that nothing would hold up. Fancy don't cut it here. People come and I say, 'man, do you like that gun you brought? Because it's going to be ruined by Monday.'"
And Shiyou gets to use his€¦a lot. He is living in a bright spot in the flyway for teal, widgeon and gaddies. "This past season we had the best duck season in 20 years," he said. And you can guess what gun he was using.
