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I've never hunted bluebills before. I love hunting divers, but never get any bb when I'm out. I recently bought two layout boats from a guy who told me exactly where to set up on a bay that he says holds 3-400 000 bb for about three weeks in oct-nov.

Is there anything specific to bluebills I need to know? I only have about a dozen bb decoys. I have plenty of scoters, goldeneyes, eiders, squaw, even a bunch of mergs and some ringers. Will they decoy to this kind of spread? What about motion? Should I bring out the Jolly Roger and flag them?

Concentrate on your cheek weld and your lead....... Blue Bills aren't quite as stupid as Redheads but almost.

Some Scoter decoys would help visibility, don't inter mingle them with the diver decoys.
Leave the GE's home
Cans, Reds, and Bills mostly tjugh

Flag them hard until they turn, and then just enough to keep them coming.

Any black and white deek will draw BBs. Having said that, I'd set your ringers and bills all together and a mini spread just down wind a bit of your GE.
Flagging won't hurt. Just remember, like geese, when they turn stop flagging.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll start working on a bluebill spread if the action is as hot as he says it is.

RonE wrote:Concentrate on your cheek weld and your lead....... Blue Bills aren't quite as stupid as Redheads but almost.

I would love to scratch a redhead off my list. It would have to get blown pretty far off course to end up here though. One day I might get lucky enough to end up with a can too, never seen a dead one but they show up from time to time.

Now, Dan says leave the GEs at home, QH says they would be ok off to the side. I wonder, is that maybe a regional thing? GEs are the dominant diver species here, so I might try them like QH said, upwind from the BB. But for sure, if this works out, BB deeks are in my future

flight control wrote:Thanks for the advice guys. I'll start working on a bluebill spread if the action is as hot as he says it is.

RonE wrote:Concentrate on your cheek weld and your lead....... Blue Bills aren't quite as stupid as Redheads but almost.

I would love to scratch a redhead off my list. It would have to get blown pretty far off course to end up here though. One day I might get lucky enough to end up with a can too, never seen a dead one but they show up from time to time.

Now, Dan says leave the GEs at home, QH says they would be ok off to the side. I wonder, is that maybe a regional thing? GEs are the dominant diver species here, so I might try them like QH said, upwind from the BB. But for sure, if this works out, BB deeks are in my future

My main point is the GE don't usually like to set up with BBs but, they hang out on the outskirts of them(kinda like buffies), especially big rafts of bills. They(GEs) are black and white, that equals good visibility. Use them, you won't regret it. Besides, there are limits on the bills, you'll need the possibilty of GE to fill your daily.
I don't think the BBs can tell the difference between ringer and BB deeks until it is too late.

Also keep in mind that BB are tough birds , if you cripple a bill he will dive as soon as he hits the water and will snorkle just under the surface of the water so make sure you pick your shots in good range , not trying to tell you what to do but I hunt diver alot and there nothing worse than a cripple or losing one. Bills are easy to decoy some days but other they are not.

Gotcha QH.
As far as limits, the regs say I'm clear for six per day. On a limit of six sea ducks, no more than four may be scoters and there is no open season on harlequin. All other ducks count on their own six bird limit, of which no more than four may be black ducks and no more than one may be barrows goldeneye. I have to make sure I know the law inside and out because green jeans don't know what the hell is going on and I've had the cops called on me by some tree huggers and had to explain to them how legal shooting time works.

I even know a guy who got his gun confiscated for shooting cormorants, which are classified as varmints with no closed season or bag limits, because the warden thought they were harlequins.

Slingshot wrote:Also keep in mind that BB are tough birds , if you cripple a bill he will dive as soon as he hits the water and will snorkle just under the surface of the water so make sure you pick your shots in good range , not trying to tell you what to do but I hunt diver alot and there nothing worse than a cripple or losing one. Bills are easy to decoy some days but other they are not.

Yeah I hate crippled divers. There's a great way to waste time and shells right there.

I don't know if I've said it yet but welcome to the site

flight control wrote:All other ducks count on their own six bird limit, of which no more than four may be black ducks

Assa is gonna shit bricks when he reads this.

NuffDaddy wrote:

flight control wrote:All other ducks count on their own six bird limit, of which no more than four may be black ducks

Assa is gonna shit bricks when he reads this.

that's new for this year. Used to be three

flight control wrote:Gotcha QH.
As far as limits, the regs say I'm clear for six per day. On a limit of six sea ducks, no more than four may be scoters and there is no open season on harlequin. All other ducks count on their own six bird limit, of which no more than four may be black ducks and no more than one may be barrows goldeneye. I have to make sure I know the law inside and out because green jeans don't know what the hell is going on and I've had the cops called on me by some tree huggers and had to explain to them how legal shooting time works.

I even know a guy who got his gun confiscated for shooting cormorants, which are classified as varmints with no closed season or bag limits, because the warden thought they were harlequins.

That sounds like a gamie who shoudn't be a gamie. How in the hell could anyone think a cormorant is a harlie?

QH's Paw wrote:

flight control wrote:Gotcha QH.
As far as limits, the regs say I'm clear for six per day. On a limit of six sea ducks, no more than four may be scoters and there is no open season on harlequin. All other ducks count on their own six bird limit, of which no more than four may be black ducks and no more than one may be barrows goldeneye. I have to make sure I know the law inside and out because green jeans don't know what the hell is going on and I've had the cops called on me by some tree huggers and had to explain to them how legal shooting time works.

I even know a guy who got his gun confiscated for shooting cormorants, which are classified as varmints with no closed season or bag limits, because the warden thought they were harlequins.

That sounds like a gamie who shoudn't be a gamie. How in the hell could anyone think a cormorant is a harlie?

He either got transfered somewhere else or fired cause we never saw him again. One time I had to explain that the fish on my stringer were yellow perch, then pull out my license and show him it was legal to keep them and tell him what the limit was.

NuffDaddy wrote:

flight control wrote:All other ducks count on their own six bird limit, of which no more than four may be black ducks

Assa is gonna shit bricks when he reads this.

And they can shoot commarants. WTF. Somebody tell me again how the fed can impact a fucking thing with their genius decision making.

QH's Paw wrote:

flight control wrote:Thanks for the advice guys. I'll start working on a bluebill spread if the action is as hot as he says it is.

RonE wrote:Concentrate on your cheek weld and your lead....... Blue Bills aren't quite as stupid as Redheads but almost.

I would love to scratch a redhead off my list. It would have to get blown pretty far off course to end up here though. One day I might get lucky enough to end up with a can too, never seen a dead one but they show up from time to time.

Now, Dan says leave the GEs at home, QH says they would be ok off to the side. I wonder, is that maybe a regional thing? GEs are the dominant diver species here, so I might try them like QH said, upwind from the BB. But for sure, if this works out, BB deeks are in my future

My main point is the GE don't usually like to set up with BBs but, they hang out on the outskirts of them(kinda like buffies), especially big rafts of bills. They(GEs) are black and white, that equals good visibility. Use them, you won't regret it. Besides, there are limits on the bills, you'll need the possibilty of GE to fill your daily.
I don't think the BBs can tell the difference between ringer and BB deeks until it is too late.

Yep.

And here, the GEs and BBs migrate at completely different times. We'll shoot a few of either, but when the bills are in that's all you see, and when the Eyes are down, there's no bills to be found.

I'm not a diver guy, but my first waterfowl mentor (I was his rock ape/retriever) was an old Lake Erie hand who used all black and white decoys for bills in the belief that they increased visibility and the birds didn't give a flip what "duck" they decoyed to, just wanted to join the party. And given that passing scaup (and cans) can't wait to land in our puddler spreads, I suspect he had them pegged.

(Fwiw, when I lived in their part of the world, most everything but mallards was long gone when the GEs showed up.)

assateague wrote:

NuffDaddy wrote:

flight control wrote:All other ducks count on their own six bird limit, of which no more than four may be black ducks

Assa is gonna shit bricks when he reads this.

And they can shoot commarants. WTF. Somebody tell me again how the fed can impact a fucking thing with their genius decision making.

Those fucking things were decoying to my goose spread all early goose. Had the bead on em many times but didnt ever pull the trigger.

If your on Big water and there's big rafts of bills close by try and use as many decoys as possible , sometimes it hard to compete with a big raft of divers not far away from ware your hunting.One more thing If your not using longlines and your in shallows thats wadeable set you blocks up in a big circle no more than 35 yards across this will give your spead from a distance the apearance of a huge spead to the passing ducks. Also this gives the ducks a landing zone in the middle of circle and keep the birds well within range for your shots.At the head of the circle put more blocks as if the diver are feeding at the head of the circle , if you watch Bills on the water feeding they feed like this as they dive down they pop up futher forward in the group this is why I set the circle up like this. Don't be fooled keep you eye open I've shot Pintails , wigeon , mallards ,teal you name it off this cicrle while hunting divers you never know whats gonna show up during ya hunt so Good luck to ya .

Slingshot wrote:If your on Big water and there's big rafts of bills close by try and use as many decoys as possible , sometimes it hard to compete with a big raft of divers not far away from ware your hunting.One more thing If your not using longlines and your in shallows thats wadeable set you blocks up in a big circle no more than 35 yards across this will give your spead from a distance the apearance of a huge spead to the passing ducks. Also this gives the ducks a landing zone in the middle of circle and keep the birds well within range for your shots.At the head of the circle put more blocks as if the diver are feeding at the head of the circle , if you watch Bills on the water feeding they feed like this as they dive down they pop up futher forward in the group this is why I set the circle up like this. Don't be fooled keep you eye open I've shot Pintails , wigeon , mallards ,teal you name it off this cicrle while hunting divers you never know whats gonna show up during ya hunt so Good luck to ya .

Good stuff slingshot. I'll keep that in mind.

NuffDaddy wrote:

assateague wrote:

NuffDaddy wrote:

flight control wrote:All other ducks count on their own six bird limit, of which no more than four may be black ducks

Assa is gonna shit bricks when he reads this.

And they can shoot commarants. WTF. Somebody tell me again how the fed can impact a fucking thing with their genius decision making.

Those fucking things were decoying to my goose spread all early goose. Had the bead on em many times but didnt ever pull the trigger.

Yeah they do that. They even seem to be attracted to a goose call for some reason. Regular season opened today and it was my first time out this year. We shot a dozen cormorants that we'll give to a guy for bear bait. Other than that, we got four scoter and two lawn darts. Not a teal, black duck or goose to be seen.

If I send you shells will you shoot more cormorants? Hate those Devils

Same here. We've got billions.

Damn right. The only thing tjat stopped me from shooting 40 or 50 was I have to pay for those shells. I'll tell you what, you guys send me some shells, I'll send you a box of jerky made from "waterfowl"

flight control wrote:Damn right. The only thing tjat stopped me from shooting 40 or 50 was I have to pay for those shells. I'll tell you what, you guys send me some shells, I'll send you a box of jerky made from "waterfowl"

Get a spot lined up. I could definitely see myself getting far more satisfaction of lethality testing as many shells as I can pump out on a bunch of dirty commies than any duck hunt!

Flightstopper wrote:

flight control wrote:Damn right. The only thing tjat stopped me from shooting 40 or 50 was I have to pay for those shells. I'll tell you what, you guys send me some shells, I'll send you a box of jerky made from "waterfowl"

Get a spot lined up. I could definitely see myself getting far more satisfaction of lethality testing as many shells as I can pump out on a bunch of dirty commies than any duck hunt!

come on over! We'll have a blast. Dirty stinky fuckers need to be thinned out. The oyster farmers would probably pitch in for shells too. They shit all over their stuff.

flight control wrote:

Flightstopper wrote:

flight control wrote:Damn right. The only thing tjat stopped me from shooting 40 or 50 was I have to pay for those shells. I'll tell you what, you guys send me some shells, I'll send you a box of jerky made from "waterfowl"

Get a spot lined up. I could definitely see myself getting far more satisfaction of lethality testing as many shells as I can pump out on a bunch of dirty commies than any duck hunt!

come on over! We'll have a blast. Dirty stinky fuckers need to be thinned out. The oyster farmers would probably pitch in for shells too. They shit all over their stuff.

That would make me as happy as Assa winning 3 large on his superbowl bet. Seriously!

What state are yall in, you shoot those nasty bastards here in my state they will cut your hands off.

He's Canadian. Bastards get to shoot 4 black ducks, too.

assateague wrote:He's Canadian. Bastards get to shoot 4 black ducks, too.

we just get it stuck in us and broke off, when it come to ducks.

Yep. God bless the government.