For LI duck hunters, rescuers fit the bill

Perhaps they should have been hunting wabbits.

Two duck hunters out on local waters Monday needed to be rescued in separate incidents, police and firefighters said.

A third rescue call was aborted after it proved to be a false alarm, Coast Guard and police officials said.

Duck hunters were out in force yesterday, taking advantage of the federal Martin Luther King holiday. The season ends Jan. 30.

In the first rescue, Suffolk County police received a 911 call about 10 a.m. reporting that a man duck hunting with a friend in the Forge River off Mastic needed help.

Police said Damon Favaloro, 38, of Manorville, and his friend had donned waders and gone into the river - where Favaloro became stuck in chest-deep mud. When he couldn't free himself, his friend called 911.

Police said Mastic Fire Department volunteers pulled Favaloro out of the mud. He was treated at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital for exposure. Whether he was kept at the hospital or his condition were not immediately known.

The second rescue came about three hours later, shortly after 1 p.m. in Swift Creek off Bay Park in East Rockaway, police said.

A man and his dog were stranded on a marsh island after their 10-foot kayak either drifted off or was stolen while the man hunted.

They said the man, whom they did not identify, had moored the kayak but that it was gone when he returned. Luckily, police said, he had a cell phone and called 911 at 1:18 p.m.

Police rescued the man and his dog unharmed. The incident was under investigation, police said.

The false alarm involved a group of duck hunters in a rowboat near Reynolds Channel off Atlantic Beach about 8:45 a.m.

Someone on the Atlantic Beach Bridge saw the men waving, thought they were in distress and called 911, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

Nassau County police said a marine bureau rescue craft and helicopter were mobilized. Local police, Atlantic Beach Rescue and the Long Beach Fire Department also were alerted, officials said.

The Coast Guard said it scrambled a rescue boat - but recalled it when police notified officials the four men were safe and sound. Officials said they were found in the boat in Bannister Creek.

"It was a bunch of duck hunters," Nassau police spokesman Officer Steven Zacchia said. "Somebody must have seen them, thought they were in distress. It all turned out to be nothing . . . Just four guys in a boat, waving hands."