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That's more than I killed all season....

What general area are you from Duck Hammer ?
Not looking for a exact location.

Legband wrote:What general area are you from Duck Hammer ?
Not looking for a exact location.

Given that you shoot more in a day than he shoots in a season, I don't think he has anything to worry about by giving exact locations

BTW, that is more than I shot this entire season and I think I'm done for the season

I love your posts. That is some amazing hunting and great pictures

SpinnerMan wrote:

Legband wrote:What general area are you from Duck Hammer ?
Not looking for a exact location.

Given that you shoot more in a day than he shoots in a season, I don't think he has anything to worry about by giving exact locations

BTW, that is more than I shot this entire season and I think I'm done for the season

I love your posts. That is some amazing hunting and great pictures

Lol
Point Well Taken
Thanks SpinnerMan

Hey SpinnerMan
While I have traveled a fair amount to shoot waterfowl , obviously I only travel to areas known for good waterfowl shooting.
With that being said it's hard ( I think ) for most guys to understand the micro environments of other states , provinces or regions.
So when I hear of guys shooting a fairly limited amount of Ducks there are obliviously factors working against them.
If we take the self Inflicted ones away like Not going out , or not being concealed what are the other factors.
Not many local ducks
Short window for the migration
Limited private or No public ground
Narrow flyway corridors.
Winter ices over crops or waterways
I'm just curious
As a boy in the 1960s you could sit behind some brush on the riverbank and kill a limit of Woody's and mallards so the whole lack of ducks idea is foreign to me here in the Pacific Flyway.

Legband wrote:What general area are you from Duck Hammer ?
Not looking for a exact location.

North Texas. Bout an hour north of Dallas.

The Duck Hammer wrote:

Legband wrote:What general area are you from Duck Hammer ?
Not looking for a exact location.

North Texas. Bout an hour north of Dallas.

I have family not far from Tyler and they have had a tough season out there has that been the case in most your area?

My family farm is just south of Tyler and we have had more birds and showed earlier than most years. Has been great.

I live in the Chicago suburbs. It is mostly an access issue. There is incredible Canada goose hunting here if you can get access to good fields. There is good duck hunting, but you have to deal with getting access to private land and/or dealing with laws that are enforced in an unpredictable way. It is possible to kill a lot of ducks and geese around here, but you have to know the right people or put a ton of time and effort into gaining access and there are a ton of people trying to get that access because of the huge number of people that live here.

I have chosen to join a local duck club that is literally in the suburbs (put in E Main St, Plainfield, IL 60544 into Google Earth and you can see where I primarily hunt which is north of main street). There are no hassles, it's 5 minutes from my house. Hunting is variable, but I can also archery hunt there, so I simply go with the flow. This year the weather was the worst possible. An early cold snap pushed nearly all the wood ducks out before season and early in the season before things picked up we got an arctic snap and all those sheltered little bodies of water frozen hard. We need new birds because we are essentially surrounded by a giant refuge and the birds figure this out very quickly.

Another reason I didn't do that great is because of what I was seeing on my trail cams motivated me to archery hunt more than typical.

This was one of 5 or 6 different 10 points (5x5 if that's how you refer to them) that would have made me extremely happy plus there was another 3 or 4 big 8 points that would have made me season. Unfortunately, I never crossed paths with any of them. I did get a nice mature doe early and then never had another opportunity at any deer. While not what I was hoping, it was a successful archery season for me.

Beautiful Buck.
Yes the one thing I left out was sanctuaries some times called refuges.
Out here federal and state money is combined with DU funds to create large areas thousands of acres , of which they generously allow us to hunt a tiny percentage of , if any.
Well I figured the weather played a major role.
It sounds like a cool club that gives you a number of options.
Thanks for the info.
And the pic of the wall hanger.

Legband wrote:

The Duck Hammer wrote:

Legband wrote:What general area are you from Duck Hammer ?
Not looking for a exact location.

North Texas. Bout an hour north of Dallas.

I have family not far from Tyler and they have had a tough season out there has that been the case in most your area?

Yes. Bad water conditions and it's been really warm up till January. Some guys have been doing good but most of them have leased out private ponds that hold birds. Most of said birds are residents that will walk up and eat at your feet but whatever makes them feel like duck hunters.

10/4 I got ya

Legband wrote:Yes the one thing I left out was sanctuaries some times called refuges.

BTW, I should have put that in quotes because there are some small refuges, but it is the large number of parks and retention ponds in the housing developments that are off limits. It is not common for me to see more ducks sitting on the pond across the street from my house than I saw while hunting. It really pisses me off sometimes

Legband wrote:And the pic of the wall hanger.

I missed him or his twin brother last season Actually right by that little pine tree you can see in the picture. That still haunts me. To add insult to injury, 15 minutes later I had another very nice buck come out about 10 yards behind that little pine tree and I had a brain fart and fucked up that shot and missed him too.

He will just be one year older when you nail him this year

Had to go to the office this morning so I went out this afternoon for a short hunt on a little pond I shoot 3-4 times a year.
It turned out well

Legband wrote:Still slow here's today's talley.

Damn fine mess-o-birds in my book Joe, and that bag would be considered an excellent day here

You make a good point,
Thx DeltaMan and we have had a fair season over all it's important to be thankful .

Picked up a few today the kids lost three cripples but they are learning,

I took a motley crew out to day and they ended up with ten killed two after the pic , good job boys!

Fog over the Lake is sure death for the shooting there while some guys pray for fog in their areas it's bad news for us.
with the lake getting worse and worse as they change the surrounding rice and pasture land to orchards one wonders if it is worth great expense and work.
This year we hunted more Ponds, Ranch's and and River spots than ever and it looks to be the trend of the future.
So that's what I did today and ended up with 5.

Maybe I can't count, but that looks like 6 to me

I'd love to get some of those little Canadas. Most of what I shoot are big honkers and think variety is the spice of life and waterfowling.

SpinnerMan wrote:Maybe I can't count, but that looks like 6 to me

I'd love to get some of those little Canadas. Most of what I shoot are big honkers and think variety is the spice of life and waterfowling.

Yea it's six my buddy shot one.

I agree with you Spinnerman.

I enjoy hunting a variety for species and the Aleutians cackling geese are a fun.

Legband wrote:I enjoy hunting a variety for species and the Aleutians cackling geese are a fun.

We occasionally get cacklers through here, but not often. I always get a laugh when you see a line of big honkers and one little cackler mixed in.

I've yet to get one. A few years back they split our goose season. That week I saw about a thousand cacklers If the season had been open, I would have forgot about duck hunting and gave it my all to get one of those little guys.

SpinnerMan wrote:

Legband wrote:I enjoy hunting a variety for species and the Aleutians cackling geese are a fun.

We occasionally get cacklers through here, but not often. I always get a laugh when you see a line of big honkers and one little cackler mixed in.


Yes they do look like the redheaded stepchild when flying out of their own species.

The Birds have moved out of the east side so I went to a refuge in the grasslands yesterday.
We lost several Ducks and snow because the pond is next to the fence of closed zone.
It was a good shoot.

With a Maxus like that , how can that not be a great picture ?

My 30''er is black and I get the same results........good pictures

Before this season started I would not have thought , it would be so good...and...more to come with the late goose season .

I hope !

Yes we are hoping a little weather materializes for late goose season.
We have some great ground to hunt but with out a good wind it will be very tuff.

By myself today not a lot of birds but the six I saw worked well.

Well it's been a good season hunted over 80 days give or take a couple.
Tomorrow is my last day of general waterfowl because I'm in church on Sundays.
I have a plan a and b if I'm not into them by 9:00am I will head to the refuge for the afternoon.
They say no fog tomorrow so we will see.
Here's today's bag off a little pond I shoot.