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My first one was in 1975. My dad took me to Oakwood Bottoms. Southern Illinois fllooded timber hot spot. (Back then)
I walked into a pond and tripped on the warning sign trying to get out.
Was wet n miserable...14 yrs old. Kept going and learned to love it.

Some day will be the last hunt. Sad to think about.

I was taken to a wood duck hot spot by a buddy that was older than me. We were set up, then 5 min before light 2 wood ducks were on the water 15 yds out from us. Legal time hit, and said "Shoot them", I said "No, I want them to be flying". He said "shoot the damn ducks". I said "No!" he said "if you ever want to come back with me, you shoot the damn birds"..me "BOOM" killed both of them. He laughed and said "Welp, that fills your wood duck limit. Sit back and watch the show." For the next 15 minutes wood ducks came from every direction, screaming left and right. He picked out his 2 and we rolled out.

Hooked since.

I tripped and overtopped my waders on Munuscong. Then I stood around for a few hours, think I shot twice or so.

It's a lot different now, I shoot a lot more.

My first duck hunts were playing rock ape/retriever for an older neighbor shooting "bills" off a Lake Erie break wall.

Shot my first duck, a brown one of some sort (now thinking hen gadwall), when it flushed from below a steep river bank while I was quail hunting, and jump-shot quite a few woodies incidentally to grouse hunts before getting hooked on floating small streams for them.

Was also a grouse hunt that led me to wanting to toll ducks. Flushed a mess of woodies from a woodland pond at the end of a ridge we'd grouse hunted without getting a shot, and sat with the dog for a while to see if any would return. Some did, and shooting incoming birds was neat enough to make me want to do it again and again. Still hooked on making them work forty years later.

I was the designated decoy n gun toter.
My father didnt want me there. He was forced to take me and made damn sure I knew it.

It was a productive spring hunt

Took me three years to kill a duck and find it.
First duck downed was a hen mallard.
Blind 3 at South Dunn walk ins at lake shelbyville. There was no blind back then. No stakes...just go.
She dove or submarined on us.
Walk in hunting...you lose a lot because eyes are low. (Wading)
Thick cover and corn. Ducks disappear in that shit.
Short ppl have it harder.
Have had seasons that I killed no ducks and seasons where I killed hundreds.
Getting better at it.

Last season was sucky at the start and excellent at the end.

Botiz took me... we shot one mallard

jehler wrote:It was a productive spring hunt

My first duck was a greenhead in April with a .410 when I was 11.
First real duck hunt was sitting on a beaver pond at my hunting shooting AT wood ducks. I think it took me almost a year to hit my firs one in flight. I think I was 13.

Allegedly.

My first duck hunt was hauling ass in boat with pops down a narrow flooded bayou in February/ March shooting whatever ducks jumped up out of the flooded brush. Was just big enough to get a 20 gauge single shot shouldered. Must've missed 100+ times but I managed to get several.

First duck was at age 10. Water swatted this widgeon with my grandpa and dad laughing in the blind next to me. Took a season and a half to kill one out of the sky.

Bootlipkiller wrote:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1371253575.434800.jpg

First duck was at age 10. Water swatted this widgeon with my grandpa and dad laughing in the blind next to me. Took a season and a half to kill one out of the sky.

great pic zak!

I started duck hunting later in my life. My first time was as a tag along about 7 years ago in Texas. Didn't shoot anything. When I moved to Michigan I picked it up again on my own and learned almost all on my own too, shot my first duck, a hen mallard on my 3rd solo hunt my 4th hunt ever.

Sent from my phone.

Olly wrote:I started duck hunting later in my life. My first time was as a tag along about 7 years ago in Texas. Didn't shoot anything. When I moved to Michigan I picked it up again on my own and learned almost all on my own too, shot my first duck, a hen mallard on my 3rd solo hunt my 4th hunt ever.

Sent from my phone.

and now you run the best online waterfowl forum in thr world

Redbeard wrote:

Olly wrote:I started duck hunting later in my life. My first time was as a tag along about 7 years ago in Texas. Didn't shoot anything. When I moved to Michigan I picked it up again on my own and learned almost all on my own too, shot my first duck, a hen mallard on my 3rd solo hunt my 4th hunt ever.

Sent from my phone.

and now you run the best online waterfowl forum in thr world

This is why your knees hurt.

Bootlipkiller wrote:

Redbeard wrote:

Olly wrote:I started duck hunting later in my life. My first time was as a tag along about 7 years ago in Texas. Didn't shoot anything. When I moved to Michigan I picked it up again on my own and learned almost all on my own too, shot my first duck, a hen mallard on my 3rd solo hunt my 4th hunt ever.

Sent from my phone.

and now you run the best online waterfowl forum in thr world

This is why your knees hurt.

sorry I was just throwing up. What'd you say?

aunt betty wrote:I was the designated decoy n gun toter.
My father didnt want me there. He was forced to take me and made damn sure I knew it.

Daddy issues, it all makes scenes now.

I may have killed my first duck with a stick at the age of 10-12yrs old. May have herded a half dz of them up under a cut out bank and then skewered one. May have have went back to camp with said duck still on stick and objecting heavily to his situation. Alledgedly.
The first intentional hunt was as a teen. My friend talked me into going "duck" hunting. Coots are ducks, right? I really didn't know shit about ducks. In the end, we had a pile of birds in the back of his cousins Chevy Luv. He drops me off at my house and says"take as many as you want". I turned around and walked off. I bet his cousin remembers my name and still cusses me to this day.

i dont remember much. i was 5 or 6 maybe. i do remember getting woke up way earlier then normal and being pissed about it

Can't remember when I started tagging along. I do reminder the mornings when my dad and uncle would leave me home though.

First "hunt" was a walk in hunt with my friend. Didn't shoot anything, but making ducks change their path with my call got me addicted.

sent from a phancy fone

I went with dickhead about 5 times. Refused to give up.
Could write a funny assed book tellng all the silly mistakes I have made.
Callng started out going kah kah kah like it said in the 2 square inches of instructions I got with the call.
Horrible. Learned by listening to ducks on the days I couldnt kill anything.
It took me many years of doing it all fucking wrong.
My first all alone on my own duck hunt...
I couldnt find the stake and ended up totally lost and my dog got skunk sprayed.
It has been one heck of an adventure ride and I still want more after 38 yrs of it.

I grew up walking fields pheasant hunting with my Grandfather and his friends in East Central IL. No duck hunters in the family. As pheasant numbers continued to dwindle in IL, and my love of hunting, I turned to a guide to try my hand hunting ducks.

The guide had some great blinds built on the Fox River in northern IL. We met early, and headed out in his boat, on what would become a warm October morning, before sunrise. I tried to soak up as much as I could from what time to leave, to how to lay out a spread, reading birds, and calling. We had a flock of woodies buzz the spread as we were tossing out the last of the decoys.

Shortly after LST, we had a pair of mallards land about 40 yards away with the geese. We ended up water swatting them, and took both the drake and hen. Got me thinking that this shit was easy...sat around for a few more hours, and had another drake mallard cup up over a mojo. The guide called the shot, I jumped up, pulled the trigger, and nothing...I forgot to take the safety off. That damn duck was so committed that he didn't move. I took the safety off, and downed him with one shot. A clean up shot later, and we had 3 ducks on the strap.

After that I was hooked. I've spent more money, and time on this stupid past time that I could have ever imagined, and couldn't be happier that I took the plunge that day.

I remember sitting in my hunters ed class many years ago, and listening to the instructor rib a friend of his about how dumb and crazy duck hunters are. I didn't get it at the time, but I understand all too well now...

My dad had gotten me a Remington 870 20 ga magnum before dove season that year and when duck season rolled around he took me to a pond on one of the dove fields we hunt. When we got to the pond my dad ask me where my gun was and I said I don't know so he give me the Benelli Nova he had brought as a backup gun to use instead. A little after shooting light some ducks came in and landed. Dad told me to shoot, so I lined up to take my shot and pulled the trigger. I was sitting on the damn and wasn't expecting the kick from the 12 ga. I almost got knocked off the damn. Missed both birds but it was a hell of an experience. Don't remember when I got my first duck, but I am pretty sure it wasn't that day.

Feelin' Fowl wrote:Shortly after LST, we had a pair of mallards land about 40 yards away with the geese. We ended up water swatting them, and took both the drake and hen. Got me thinking that this shit was easy...

Reminded me of the "first hunt" story a fellow once shared with me. The fellow wasn't a hunter but his son was bitten by the bug and a grandfather had worked a deal for the boy to hunt with our lodge. A birth defect had left the boy with dwarfed arms that required a shortened gun stock and still limited his field of fire tremendously. But he was a great kid, and we guides would about arm wrestle to take him when our schedules allowed. Other times you might see him accompanied by his grandmother, a great woman in her own right.

Eventually, the boy's father borrowed a gun and made his first hunt with him, after which the fellow buttonholed me at a convenience store. "It was great," he beamed. "Some birds came in right at shooting time and we got a couple, they just kept coming, and we kept killing them."

"Then we tried some in the air," he confided. "That's a whole 'nother game."

I didn't know anyone who hunted ducks but had wanted to do it for awhile. Last season I decided to go it alone. I got my stamp and a couple boxes of shells and waited for season opener. Opening day came and I'm all exited, got to a little pond I knew of about half hour before LST and hid in some brush on the side of the pond. No decoys, no dog, no idea what I was doing. I sat and watched ducks coming in on the other side of the pond from where I was set up. That was it. I did that 2-3 more times before I realised that for some reason the ducks liked that other side where a little stream entered the pond. Once I set up in that area I finally would get a duck. Retrieving it is another story that involves me in my underwear out for an unplanned swim.

I have shot wood ducks while hunting tree rats but my first real duck hunt was three years ago I was a tag along. Only duck we killed was a spoonbill. But that's all it took and I can't look back. My wife wishes I would have stayed a bow hunter. I have learned alot on my own and am still learning.

My first duck was a water swatted wigeon. One pellet in the head!

This last season, my nieces boyfriend asked if I'd take him along with me. So I helped him pick out a shotgun, waders, and all the basics. Opening day came along and we set up for an evening hunt after work. We set up the decoys and settled in across the marsh from my dad and brother. His first bird came along shortly after, a black duck on the wing with one shot. Later, a flock of geese landed in my dads spread and they opened up on them, killing a couple. The geese took off and I hit the call. They turned right towards us and I called the shot with the geese 20 yards out and still coming fast. My gun jammed. About three minutes later he asks me if we should go look for his goose. I didn't even realize he hit anything! It was getting dark and the spot where t fell was on the other side of a deep rut, but I had the next day off from work and promised I'd go back and look for it. Well, since he said the goose just locked up and sailed to the ground, I started looking around bushes and any sort of cover it would've aimed for and found it. Lucky bastard got a black duck and a goose on his first time out. He tagged along for the rest of the season and had a blast. He's hooked for life now

Rick wrote: "It was great," he beamed. "Some birds came in right at shooting time and we got a couple, they just kept coming, and we kept killing them."

"Then we tried some in the air," he confided. "That's a whole 'nother game."

I love this part of your post Rick. Truth be told, I bet this exact situation or something similar has happened to a very large portion of duck hunters in the beginning.