One day a couple of my friends asked if I wanted to go with them on a seal hunt. With the intent of sending seal coats to their wives, some of the other airmen had been hunting seal in the Izembek Lagoon, and these two wanted to give it a try. Without giving it much thought, I told them I would go along. That evening the three of us took the squadron boat with its outboard motor out into the lagoon. I had never hunted seal before, so I didn't know what to expect. We eventually reached a point far enough out into the lagoon to start seeing seals in the water around us. By then, it was starting to get dark, and I was nervous about being pulled out to sea by the tide. However, my companions assured me I had nothing to worry about. They proceeded to explain to me how they intended to hunt. When an inquisitive seal would stick its head above water, we would row the boat close enough to shoot it. Then we would row over to it as fast as we could before the seal would sink beyond our grasp. Thrusting our arm into the water up to our shoulder, we would hope we had grasped the seal. This sounded like a crazy plan to me, but it worked! Steve Bishop bagged a seal with his lever-action carbine, and brought it onto the floor of our motor pool. Gene Smith was the third member of our group. That was my one-and-only seal hunt. It was dark when we returned, and I couldn’t wait to get my two feet on dry land.