Greenheads are great, and drake pintails are as handsome as they come. Still, there's just something about the divers--brutish, bull-chested and strong of wing, canvasbacks and redheads, bluebills, buffleheads and goldeneyes challenge and frustrate even the most jaded of waterfowlers.

For many, divers are the swept-wing symbols of tradition. Few places are more traditional for gunning the country's vast array of divers than the relatively shallow waters of western Lake Erie, and in particular, the sister bays--Maumee and Sandusky. The 1,350-acre Maumee Bay sits in the northwestern corner of the Buckeye State, and is shared perhaps 60/40 with Michigan. Larger, approximately by a multiple of three, Sandusky Bay lies close to center on Ohio's North Coast, just a short drive west of Cleveland.

Divermen work the open-water expanses of each, testing themselves and their equipment against Mother Nature and their quicksilver quarry. However, coastal marshes--Magee, Metzger and Mallard--managed by the Ohio DNR's Division of Wildlife, can also provide excellent inshore gunning for divers, particularly when the weather's nasty on the big lake.

Both Maumee and Sandusky bays sport a multitude of launching facilities, the majority of which can be researched by contacting the Ohio Division of Watercraft. Choose the one closest to where the birds are working.

A Diverman Speaks
Now forty-four, Woodville, Ohio's, Chuck Crump has been gunning divers on Sandusky Bay for almost three decades. During that time, he's enjoyed many an incredible experience on the water, and, sadly, lost a dear friend to wicked Lake Erie. "The two most important things you can have with you out there when you're hunting," Crump says without hesitation, "is a VHF radio and a personal flotation device. You need to know how to use the radio, and you have to use the PFD. Guns, boats and decoys can all be replaced; a life can't."

Currently, Crump guns Sandusky Bay in a style known as layout hunting, using either his one-man Mighty Layout Boys Classic or a prototype two-man skiff he helped design.

"I've been doing this long enough," he says, "I have certain spots saved in my GPS and can leave the ramp at any time. However, it makes sense to leave [the ramp] after sunrise. You can glass the birds before deciding where to go. Plus, it eliminates the problem of downwinding or setting up too close to someone--something easy to do in the dark."

In terms of decoys, Crump typically mixes his diver spread. "I'll go heavy on the cans," he says, "because cans like to decoy to their own kind. Bluebills and redheads will decoy to almost anything. I'll run what I call the Magic Six (six drake goldeneyes, another species-specific bird) on the outside, and some off-species--oldsquaws or common mergansers--for color."