Looking Ahead to 2018-2019...

[Rick]

a fellow who's inherited part of our marsh's estate

OH MY!

He and his sister turned out to be some of the nicest, most down to earth folks you could meet and said they just wanted to at least see what the land looked like before they aged out of such trips.

[Rick]

...Seems my swatters, on several occasions, had only a couple of three shells which ended up being not enough to do the job. This, from a rocking boat in high winds. The chase with a paddle after a diving duck begins. I would like to film these excursions and play it back at fast speed...

That image started my morning with a chuckle. Can't say I'm one, but know a few guys who keep second guns and #6 or 7 shells in their boats for cripple chases.

[SpinnerMan]

...Seems my swatters, on several occasions, had only a couple of three shells which ended up being not enough to do the job. This, from a rocking boat in high winds. The chase with a paddle after a diving duck begins. I would like to film these excursions and play it back at fast speed...

That image started my morning with a chuckle. Can't say I'm one, but know a few guys who keep second guns and #6 or 7 shells in their boats for cripple chases.

The guide on our sea duck hunt used 7's because they don't do so much damage on birds people might want to mount.

Anybody that has not tried to shoot crippled divers in open water, it can be a sport unto itself. We had a bluebill, it would just pop its bill out and down it would go. Whack-a-mole with a shotgun. After my buddy missed 7 shots, he gave up in frustration and told me it was my turn. I got her in 3. 10 shots for a downed duck

[Rick]

Whack-a-mole with a shotgun.

That image reminded me that chipped ruddies were the most frustrating I've encountered. They and scaup inexplicably showed up in force one season in open plowed and deep flooded rice ground behind the camp, providing afternoon shoots that were great fun - except the crippled ruddies made the crippled scaup look like they were on the short buss. Frickin' ruddies hardly showed a dimple on the calm surface before disappearing to go dimple another spot over yonder.

Folks I know using small shot for crips are just wanting more chances to hit small vitals. I like to think shooting a bit low to skip part of the pattern into them helps, too.

[DComeaux]

a fellow who's inherited part of our marsh's estate

OH MY!

He and his sister turned out to be some of the nicest, most down to earth folks you could meet and said they just wanted to at least see what the land looked like before they aged out of such trips.

That's good to hear.

I'm currently sitting in the recliner in the camp at Chenier typing this .....I really like it down here... still a few spoonbill hanging around and lots of very tame blue wing

[Rick]

I'm currently sitting in the recliner in the camp at Chenier typing this ...

I'm not too much of a camp for its own sake guy, but given the proximity of good fishing, crabbing and shrimping, I can definitely see the attraction to that one.

[DComeaux]

Should of called...im here alone. Finished our work by 10:30 this morning. Got an early start.

[Rick]

...lots of very tame blue wing...

... blue wings all over our marsh...

Would be interesting to know why we didn't move any in our marsh the other day. Had pairs and small groups all over Cherry Ridge. Used to swarm ours like blackbirds before the fall guns go off, even after Rita and Ike. I blame it on the two back-to-back drought years, but still...

[DComeaux]

They only go to your marsh during hunting season.

[Rick]

Could be they only get chased through it during hunting season. Though I did find a slew of them camping at the back blind just after the season one year while I was still spending September seasons at the east blind on the other end.

[Rick]

Still experimenting with paint makes and color mixes for redoing a mess of specks for the mudhole. Gave up on flat marine enamels from Lock, Stock and Barrel due to serious burnishing shine issues, and am much happier with Ronan Japan Fine's burnishing characteristics. But it doesn't come in as many, more or less, decoy applicable colors and requires more mixing than I've any knack for, and the decoy paint mixing schedule I have on hand hasn't translated well to Ronan's colors. So I've been mixing small batches of recorded mix ratios and running them through the airbrush onto white "foam board" in densities varying from light to heavy, and finally homing in on the tones I'm after. Can't, of course, ever really match the color changes a live goose's raised feathers make in changing light, but am looking for easily replicated colors that are pretty darn close.

Anyway, while checking my currently most promising mixes against birds in my photo files, I ran into this shot of a dear, now-retired, hunting buddy with a couple:

2012-2013hunting110_zps62a596a1.jpg

Eats my lunch to have lost most of my opportunities to enjoy such sights, but also spurs my efforts to improve our speck fortunes in the marsh.

[Deltaman]

Great picture of Peake, and look at that tail, straight up in the air
Also, never really thought about shooting in front of a cripple to "skip" the shot and increase the chance of a head shot on the water, but have on many occasions, noticed it................just too dumb to put 2 and 2 together Will remember that little trick for next time I'm bouncing in a boat and trying to shoot a cripple.

[Rick]

I look at shooting swimming cripples a little like shooting turkeys, where I try to center the bottom of its wattles, rather than waste half a pattern over its head (which might also have a better chance of ducking out of a pattern than its lower neck) targeting it. Figure trying for the bottom of what shows on a duck or just under it ups my chances of putting pellets in it by wasting less of the pattern thanks to "skipping".

'Course, whether it really does would be hard to prove...

[Rick]

Still browsing old photos (which generally aren't as helpful as what's on the internet and youtube in particular but more fun for their taker) and comparing colors and came across this 2007 Christmas morning shot of "Big Sid" at the Mudhole:

IMG_3030a.jpg

Has always tickled me to come across it, because Sid and another fellow were my annual Christmas morning regulars in those days, and the shot of our all-drake limit was taken to as a dig on the buddy who'd partied too hard and stood him up that year.

But I'm posting it now as self-reassurance that the scabby, minimalist approach I then took to blinding at the mudhole, and expect to again this year, worked just fine, even with a big man (Sid broke through the dog stand that morning) hunting standing up. If, of course, said big man showed some respect for the birds' vision.

[Deltaman]

WOW.............what a sweet bag, and hope he ragged the shet out of his missing partner

[Darren]

Even took the care to shoot a drake mottled and greenwings!

In Jan of '12, with the floods, didn't have near the cane as I saw on subsequent hunts either.

DSC07331.JPG

Can tell you I've experienced many instances of an element of surprise, and thus a learning curve, for gunning at your blind when birds that work in "right" are winging around the left hand corner which are more readily seen by you than the (hopefully hiding) hunters. It can create a rush/panic to get underway, and potentially, rushed shots. You might find some gunners make out a little better with being able to see them coming around a bit easier, assuming they don't stand and watch and point as they're doing so.

[Rick]

Would guess that has accounted for any number of instances when folks with ducks RIGHT in front of them have whacked away at others out over the flotant. Know I plan to make a wire basket for the SE boat hide post to hold my spare canes next fall, rather than keeping them in the one at the end of the dog stand where they've too often blocked my own view.

Rub, of course, becomes the same one as when a NW wind has birds finishing over the top of the blind and folks seeing them so close can't hold their water well enough to let them come on over and drop in front of everyone. Not that that doesn't also sometimes happen with birds swinging around thick canes on our left into a strong wind and panicked souls flaring them out with the wind before they can get in the trap, but it sure doesn't seem as common. Reckon we'll see how the help-some/hurt-some ratio works out.

[Rick]

Even took the care to shoot a drake mottled and greenwings!

Good eye, btw. Maybe we'll also impose a no hen rule this year and see how that goes...maybe not.

[SpinnerMan]

has birds finishing over the top of the blind and folks seeing them so close can't hold their water well enough to let them come on over and drop in front of everyone.

I can't make that shot to save my freaking life. Your blind they might be lower, but one blind I hunt with a south wind they come in high over my right shoulder and hook in front of the blind. It's like I'm shooting flippin' blanks.

One day me and my buddy were hunting this blind. A single came in from the left. Bang, one shot one bird. A pair comes in the same way. Bang bang. One shot a piece, one bird a piece. Then I guess the wind shifted and they started coming in from behind over the trees. About a box of shells later we had our 4 mallards each. I'm not fully convinced that I actually shot 4 of them though and I started out with 2 in the bag on 2 shells

They look beautiful coming in this way. We have a nice clear view of them as the drop in cupped up usually just off the right side of the blind before the hook right to that imaginary X you want them to go front and center of the blind. What's funny is almost any other wind and they want to land far right out of range and you best take them first pass over the decoys.

I'd be better off not holding my water. It would screw everybody else, but at least I'd hit some I don't know if I'm not getting my head down or what my problem is. Probably just got it stuck in my head that I can't make the shot, so I don't.

[aunt betty]

Had to read that a couple times to get it rick. I think you mean that people can't wait and let them make that final turn when you got em on a string and they fly over the blind/pit. Rough call there. Shoulda wouldas...
Me? I'd rather wait and see and get them hovering and shoot their &^%#ing heads off.
lol

[Rick]

When the wind is such that they finish right over our heads - and we let them - they're trapped between wind and guns, and it's like popping balloons. I love it. But I don't love folks jumping when they see toenails, and the wind that was going to help us ends up sweeping flaring birds away before folks can get underway. Grrr...

[Rick]

To further complicate your thought process, I’d argue that the average duck IQ has doubled since 2007.

That would be all the more reason for thin cover that doesn't appear apt or even able to conceal guns.

(But the counter argument would be that duck "hunter" IQ may have halved since 2007.)

[aunt betty]

The duck hunter IQ depends on location. For instance if you go sit with me at my local public haunt you'll get to see kids trying to shoot kildeer and cormorants. They're the bottom of the barrel when it comes to IQ but we all started somewhere.
Some of us...myself included, had to learn it all the hard way because there just wasn't anyone to mentor beginners here in the duck desert. You could go to a DU meeting to try and get some help and get literally laughed out of the building.
Been there done that too. Gifford, Illinois.
They still send me mail trying to beg me back into that awful place. Nice people in Gifford the nicest in the state but the duck hunters there are way way too good to hunt public.

If you're into country cruising the township that Gifford is in is well-known for everyone waving and smiling as they pass on the roads. Kind of unique but that's Gifford. They really are the nicest people in the whole state.

Duck hunters are dicks.
Me too....me too.

[Rick]

No question I can be a dick, too, but I genuinely like most of the folks I carry afield. Would have quit doing it long ago if I didn't.

Still, what waterfowling evolution there may be seems much more toward shooting than hunting: toward hitting them higher rather than getting them closer.

Not that there haven't always been guys whacking away at crazy stuff. A long ago study in your state, AB, looked at the crippling effects of #4 buckshot by posting thirty-some observers with firing line shooters outside refuges for two days to track cripples vs kills. I've long forgotten those stats but haven't forgotten that the #4 buck shooters were asked to call their shots, and not one of the birds actually targeted was hit. Yet, a lot of "hunters" happily paid to do it. And around the same (circa:'70s) time in my then own state of Ohio, I checked out the September teal hunting at a highly acclaimed WMA and found a bizarre scene that looked for all the world more like a catfishing tournament than hunt, if the folks sitting on lawn chairs and buckets pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder were not wielding shotguns and merrily banging away at birds well over 100yds above. Just has always been the nature of some beasts.

But it seems like the guys who'd rather find a way to draw game closer than hit it farther are becoming rarer. That, or I'm just older and grumpier and it burns my ass more to hear one of our ghetto guide staff try to explain away inane sky-busting with the even more inane "Every shot you don't take is a miss."

[aunt betty]

I've tree-topped a couple out of desperation.

It's way funner when you can feel the wingbeats on your face and hear the wind getting "torn" as they pile in once you've let that first bunch land. Letting them first ones land is hard but I guarantee it's worth giving it a shot. You can always shoot em on the way out. Give it a half-minute and see and maybe take a peek upwards.

[SpinnerMan]

I've tree-topped a couple out of desperation.

Your trees must be a lot taller than where I hunt. There are not many trees over 100 ft (33 yards). Tree top high is a dead goose. That's exactly how I killed a large fraction of the geese when I first started hunting out here. Flyovers, that were tree top high. There are some gaps in the tree line, so the geese that are low tend to pass over these areas instead of passing just above the tree tops.

I still whack 'em when they come over when I'm duck hunting there. I just don't go out of my way to hunt where they are more likely to come over only at the tops of the trees. Then I was happy to get a goose any way I could. Now, I'd probably trade 1 goose I called in feet down under 20 yards for 5 or 10 geese flying over. If I think I have a chance at decoying geese, I've passed at easy flyovers. If I have any doubt about distance I don't shoot versus back then if I had doubt I did shoot.

merrily banging away at birds well over 100yds above

I just never understood this. What's fun about that? I get it when you first start out and you don't have a clue, but it doesn't take that long to realize you are shooting air.

What pisses me off, and there are guys at my club who will shoot a lot of ducks out around 50 yards. They knock a lot of them down and lose a very large fraction of them. A lot of places there it is a bitch to recover your birds. Even with a dog, you will lose a lot of cripples. It's just how it is. You have to be smart, but they bang away on those birds hung up, knock 'em down and lose most of them. That's worse than shooting air with birds 100 yards away.

[Darren]

Still, what waterfowling evolution there may be seems much more toward shooting than hunting: toward hitting them higher rather than getting them closer.

But it seems like the guys who'd rather find a way to draw game closer than hit it farther are becoming rarer. That, or I'm just older and grumpier and it burns my ass more to hear one of our ghetto guide staff try to explain away inane sky-busting with the even more inane "Every shot you don't take is a miss."

Have long heard this adage in another circle I'm part of, soccer, and it's funny there. Not at all the same case in waterfowling

But, but, but.....Benelli Super Black Eagle 3, and Long range chokes, and T-shot, and good 'ol social media gumption that makes extra super long shots not only "possible", but bragworthy. It's just the predominant culture in all things waterfowl these days. Paint face, shoot far, tell everyone about it

[aunt betty]

After you clean and eat a few hundred ducks you figure out that you can shoot em in the head.
Becomes second nature. Tight chokes are good for that if you have the ability to focus on their eyes and bills.
Will shoot at em at longer range than 30 or 35 but that's a second or third shot kind of thing.


Trees are normal height in the woods but why blow it for everyone by shooting a passing wood duck or whatever.
35 yards is an easy shot but can do better. Make it a pass-shot with almost zero notice and the odds are stacked against you.
There's a really good reason to not take them longer shots. The dog has to go get the bird and it's a freaking log-filled mess. It's thick and not friendly. Better to get the birds in tight and smoke em.