Looking Ahead to 2018-2019...

[SpinnerMan]

Better to get the birds in tight and smoke em.

Where I am talking about, you will NOT get the geese in tight. It's pass shooting or no shooting. Back when I could still count my lifetime total of geese on my fingers and toes, it was very different. Now, I got something out of my freezer the other day and realized I need to eat more goose because I'm not going to end up cleaning out the freezer before the September season starts.

After you clean and eat a few hundred ducks

After you have shot a few hundred, the priorities should be very different and long before you have shot that many.

why blow it for everyone by shooting a passing wood duck or whatever.

If you shoot and kill the bird, you aren't blowing it for anyone else any more than if you shoot that bird feet down over the decoys. If you enjoy pass shooting, great. If not, great. It's not the people killing birds that are doing anything wrong. It's the people not killing the birds by shooting at birds they have no real chance that are legitimately screwing things up for other people.

We are not allowed to pass shoot ducks at our club. Geese we are because as I said, other than the fields we have made for hunting geese, at least 90% of the geese will be pass shooting outside of early goose. Ducks have to be down well below the trees. No pass shooting. Our blinds are too close and you often get ducks that swing over you on the way to someone else.

[Rick]

why blow it for everyone by shooting a passing wood duck or whatever.

If you shoot and kill the bird, you aren't blowing it for anyone else any more than if you shoot that bird feet down over the decoys. If you enjoy pass shooting, great. If not, great. It's not the people killing birds that are doing anything wrong. It's the people not killing the birds by shooting at birds they have no real chance that are legitimately screwing things up for other people.

Amen.

[aunt betty]

You just had to be there in the south blind, holds ten people, when I popped a spoonie that landed in my kill-zone.
They were brutal and went so far as to say that there were 30 greenheads locked up with specks above them that were "lookin' hard".
I violated the taboo of "shoot only when told to".

I got real gun shy after that for a couple days and made them tell me twice or I wouldn't shoot. Fuck em...can't take a joke the damned duck was smiling and waving FFS.

[Rick]

Never in that, or any blind holding ten people, but I've been there when someone couldn't hold his water until the shot was called and whacked, or tried to, the wrong bird and screwed up a much better pending opportunity. Far more often than I care to think.

A particularly notable recent example being last New Year's morning with a Mississipi deer hunter:

Birds By Species: 6 mallards, 2 pintails and 2 shovellers and 1 pintail decoy (shot as a Scotch triple when the spoons lit in front of pintails I was working while hissing "Let those go! Let those go!")

Bit of a heart-breaker, but stuff happens. As I replied to a followup comment:

I think most of the new hunters, like Dusty, really try to follow instruction, but there's a lot of new information coming at them at once. And if it wasn't exciting, folks wouldn't pay for it. Probably especially tough to hold your water when you're struggling and don't know a spoon from a pintail in the air - and there's a bunch of ducks RIGHT THERE! on the water.

Only time it really pisses me off is when it's a FE who does it.

[Deltaman]

"Only time it really pisses me off is when it's a FE who does it."

That's when you downgrade them to a DA..................

[SpinnerMan]

"Only time it really pisses me off is when it's a FE who does it."

That's when you downgrade them to a DA..................

A DA is just being DA. The FEs are doing it because they think they know better.

[Rick]

On a brighter note, I thought I'd share my new favorite background music with those inclined to such:

.

Seems my search for a suitable speck decoy paint tone has wandered beyond obsession, and I may actually be nearing the end of the internet with regard to speck photos and videos. Well, maybe not. But I've stumbled onto a couple new sources posted since my last speck vocalizations binge, and the above has topped John Prine and Gin Wigmore on my current background chart.

Puts me in mind of a great favorite pastime that's become much too rare in recent years: laying on the backside of a levee listening to specks on the other side. Mighty nice to be able to do that, or at least something close, on my own schedule without having to wait for the moon and stars to align just so.

[DComeaux]

That is an awesome find.

[Rick]

Now if they could just capture the scent of the earth and cut stubbles on video (and leave out the deer flies)...

Internet really can be a wonderful resource. Doesn't seem that long ago that I'd never pick up a speck call unless the birds were down for reference, for fear of slipping into practicing speck hunter and stage tones and cadences contaminating my memory. Now, bookmarked references for most any real deal riff I might want to work on are always at hand. Wonderful, I tell you. Wonderful.

As are the high quality close-up videos. Probably not a lot of folks have spent (most would say "frittered away") as much time watching specks as I, and I've long thought factory decoys too light from the rear, but it never dawned on me just how ass-backward the mfg's standard procedure of airbrushing (from the front and using the unpainted molded-in relief at the feathers' rear to create the appearance of light feather edging) makes their decoys appear until I started watching youtube specks turning about.

Step back from a decoy in neutral light and walk around it from front to rear, and it will look darkest from the front and grow lighter as you get to its rear. Do the same with a speck in neutral light, and the just the opposite happens. Couldn't prove that one speck in a thousand has had that same realization, but I'm not going to ignore the possibility that a great many have when when (OK, "if") I start repainting.

[Rick]

To that last point, the decoys I've most wanted to repaint are '04 and '05 version Hardcores that too soon began shedding their paint - but that repeatedly out-drew Dave Smiths for finishing specks when I used the two concurrently. As the HCs were an appreciably darker overall shade than the DSDs (and I believe mixing speck of very appreciably varying shade a cardinal decoying sin), I always kept the two makes well separated to downplay that difference. And finishing birds invariably gravitated to the HCs.

(Being a mini-spread fan, I didn't often use both makes concurrently and wouldn't want to bet that the "invariably" would have held up to more frequent or rigorous testing, but I did try switching them up with regard to wind.)

Anyway, I've always thought the HC's more varied postures were why specks seemed to favor them, but now wonder if it wasn't because their version of HC mold had very little feather relief and were painted more completely, with the feather trim airbrushed on. So it didn't look like someone were opening blinds on their backs as specks swung behind them.

[aunt betty]

It's getting deep. The 'science' of vision in the context of decoy paint schemes is probably way deep.

You start with photography because you have to have pittures to compare. Front back side etc. (mug shots)

The way a camera "perceives" is probably not at all like our eyes. (it's not) Then compare to how a bird sees.
It just got too deep I need my water wings.

I suspect that birds see "faster" and also better. They have to see fast to not run into things. By fast I mean that their eyes and brains are set up to take much more pictures per second so to speak. The human eye/brain is set up for around 25 frames per second (fps) if you're into animation so I'd say that's our speed. Duck speed is probably 100 fps or better. Speck speed? Probably like ducks. Maybe they take a bigger wider angle picture too. Their eyes are set up for it. I doubt they see anything like we do.
Radar...

[Rick]

What may matter is that they can perceive detail at two to three times the distance we can. With just how much depending on what they then do with that information, which plainly varies greatly from case to case.

Enjoy your water wings.

[Rick]

Not sure what to think about the UV paint, as the only person I know who experimented with it concluded it was counterproductive, painted over it with Rustoleum flat white and had better luck. Small sample that could have been influenced by who knows what all, but he's pretty darn serious about his speck experiments.

Re: calling, though, I like my chances calling without any decoys at all from good cover in a reasonably attractive but roughed-up location where they can't readily see that no "birds" are on the ground better than with decoys on clean ground or water. Just nothing quite like watching them come swinging their heads and scouring the clods or marsh grass for the call's source. Would rather hunt my marsh blind without speck decoys - if I could pick and choose my blind company. The speck decoys there are much more for distraction from what's in the blind than attraction to its location.

If if he puts 'em in the right place, and shoots fairly well, a fellow with his call in his pocket will have days when he can kill specks over decoys alone, but I don't think it possible to overstate the value of good calling - at least not in our part of their range.

[Rick]

Reckon I'd first need to get over my little "If they're flying with blues, they'll act like blues." 'tude, if I ever hope to break many out of them. Usually just concede them to the blues without discussion. Last time we shot specks out of blues, PJ (who browses here) was with me and popped two that came along when I broke some blues down - which I'm no good at, either, unless something's already holding them below the stratosphere.

In the interest of full disclosure:

Malfunctions: My barrel and brain were crooked: shot once and missed then got tangle-brained trying to pick something better and didn't fire again.

And so it came to pass that someone else had to shoot young Marsh's first specks for him.

[DComeaux]

If you start at the 2:40 and roll to the 3:05 mark you'll hear what I think is a greeting, or sounds made when a flock is landing with the group. I've only heard this reproduced, somewhat, by call in one speck hunt video that I've seen.

[Rick]

Are you talking about the sharp single notes that can be heard again in the 3:30-3:40 segment? Can't say I've heard it, or been observant enough to notice it, when birds in the air are joining those on the ground. All I've noticed would seem much more "fussing" than "greeting," ie: whining, clucking and/or buzzing. Seems, however, like they very, if not most, often don't bother doing anything out of the ordinary that I can pick up with my tin ears. Much to my great dismay.

[Rick]

Thinking on it, Dave, I believe I've seen you or someone else here post my favorite youtube example, begins around 1:10:



I've a homemade VCR tape a friend with a permit to keep them shot of his doing the same when birds from outside their little group encroached on what they apparently considered their space.

[SpinnerMan]

yeah i shot them on the water as well as ducks---sorry if that is offensive--i would rather shoot over the top but the damn things sometimes land before i get too

I used to try to jump them up. Then I started hunting with a guy that would say "I'm going to jump them up" which means he's going to shoot the first one on the water. It beats yelling at them and throwing rocks at them. I've had them swim away, or I screw up the shot because I don't get my head back down, ... I don't purposely let them land, but if they beat me to it, well, I clearly did what I was trying to do and I'm going to "jump them up" and not fool around if they don't jump when I stand up.

[aunt betty]

Used to "ha" them or finally shoot and miss to get them to fly. That was when it was not legal to water swat and now it is...
I might have swatted one or two prior to the law changing I'm not sure..it was way back in the 1900's.

[Rick]

yeah i shot them on the water as well as ducks---sorry if that is offensive--i would rather shoot over the top but the damn things sometimes land before i get too

I used to try to jump them up. Then I started hunting with a guy that would say "I'm going to jump them up" which means he's going to shoot the first one on the water. It beats yelling at them and throwing rocks at them. I've had them swim away, or I screw up the shot because I don't get my head back down, ... I don't purposely let them land, but if they beat me to it, well, I clearly did what I was trying to do and I'm going to "jump them up" and not fool around if they don't jump when I stand up.

Most of our Ohio Canadas would land, and we'd let them. But having been brought on not to shoot sitting birds, we'd then flush and shoot them a very few feet off the ground, as if that were more sporting. Very different hunting culture down here, and while I still won't do it myself, water-swats that won't include my decoys get my "Kill him there if you want to." Some will, some won't.

[Rick]

I hear that prior to specks jumping as in leaving the roost or groups lit in the field I which we never knew where there then they make that noise prior to jumping.

Assuming we're talking about the sharp single notes, I'm with you in that regard. I think of them as being in the alarm register and most often noticed (at least by me) when I, or something else, spooks birds from a field. But it may well just be something they feel like doing when leaving, or even a gathering "Let's go." Not something I've ever considered emulating, in any event.

But it may be that I'm missing out by reading negative connotation into a similar note and cadence that could have positive ones...

[DComeaux]

Are you talking about the sharp single notes that can be heard again in the 3:30-3:40 segment? Can't say I've heard it, or been observant enough to notice it, when birds in the air are joining those on the ground. All I've noticed would seem much more "fussing" than "greeting," ie: whining, clucking and/or buzzing. Seems, however, like they very, if not most, often don't bother doing anything out of the ordinary that I can pick up with my tin ears. Much to my great dismay.

Yeah, that's it. I don't know if I'd try to imitate that though, as it seems more of an aggravated, aggressive, get out of here type call rather than a greeting. It appears to be only when the birds are in tight and very close to landing.

[DComeaux]

Thinking on it, Dave, I believe I've seen you or someone else here post my favorite youtube example, begins around 1:10:



I've a homemade VCR tape a friend with a permit to keep them shot of his doing the same when birds from outside their little group encroached on what they apparently considered their space.

Glad you showed this one. I didn't feel like digging for it again, and did think of it when I saw, and listened to your clip.

[DComeaux]

Thinking on it, Dave, I believe I've seen you or someone else here post my favorite youtube example, begins around 1:10:



I've a homemade VCR tape a friend with a permit to keep them shot of his doing the same when birds from outside their little group encroached on what they apparently considered their space.

Glad you showed this one. I didn't feel like digging for it again, and did think of it when I saw, and listened to your clip.

Watch the clip I copied in the quote to Rick. It's the yeeeeeeeeeeep, yeeeeeeeeeeeep sounds they make as they're rushing to meet the landing birds.