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January 9, 2013
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The birds were coming in fast and low. A flock of at least 40 redheads had skirted our decoys once. Now they circled and were banking to make another pass. Just feet above the water they jetted toward us, but at the last minute they hooked behind our blind instead of in front of it.
"Cut'em now, behind the blind!" our guide called, so I popped up and shouldered my gun. Forty targets, flying full speed, at 20 yards makes for an intimidating shot. And when you're the only shooter and have got a blind full of other hunters watching you, it makes for a lonely shot too.
[ Read Full Post ] January 3, 2013
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Near season’s end, don’t get frustrated by educated birds and become a couch potato. From sizing down your spread to changing up your calling, the last waterfowl of the season require your most alluring tactics.
1) Sleeper Therapy for Field Honkers
Champion caller Scott Threinen (moltgear.com) recommends using lots of sleeper shells—up to 70 percent of your spread. “Below 20 degrees, geese will go to sleep to conserve energy immediately upon landing in a field. After a half hour to two hours, they’ll get up and start feeding. To simulate a real flock, place sleepers on the downwind side of your spread to look like recently landed geese, with walkers and feeders upwind.”
[ Read Full Post ]December 26, 2012
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I'll spare you the over-told cedar plank joke and get to it … there's a good number of outdoorsmen who like to hunt, but not eat, wild ducks. If those ducks happen to be fish-eating divers, that number only multiplies.
Last week I had the opportunity to hunt Bay Flats Lodge in Seadrift, Texas and found a simple solution to this predicament: duck soup. We polished off half a dozen redheads this way and it was one of the best duck dishes I've ever had.
[ Read Full Post ]December 14, 2012
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Nontoxic shot has been required for waterfowl hunting since 1992. And more states are mandating its use in select areas for upland bird hunting—even for doves on some state lands.
During the past two decades, despite a plethora of nontoxic-shot types coming to the market—steel, bismuth, and tungsten composites—bird hunters have taken primarily to shooting steel shot. Steel currently makes up nearly 90 percent of all nontoxic shotshell sales.
[ Read Full Post ]December 13, 2012
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Ghastly weather, the kind that keeps most people indoors, sounds the alarm to waterfowlers that the best days afield have arrived. But if last season taught us anything, it’s that Mother Nature is a fickle mistress—the 2011–12 season featured the greatest migration that never really happened. With two back-to-back record spring hatches, however, this season could serve as a huge comeback for duck and goose hunters.
[ Read Full Post ]November 29, 2012
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Putting out a set of decoys and getting the attention of far-off ducks and geese isn’t hard. Any arrangement of painted plastic blocks and a halfway reasonable honk or quack will do the trick. Finishing those birds, however, is another story. Under close scrutiny, proper calling technique is essential.
“When a flock is working your spread, pick out a single bird that you can see is reacting to your calling and call just to him. Keep him interested and coming,” says guide Mario Friendly of Sherwood, Oregon. “But don’t call too loudly as they approach. Add more feeding chuckles and contented calls.”
[ Read Full Post ]October 30, 2012
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November can be a challenging month for the upland bird hunter. September, despite its heavy cover and warm days, offered plenty of naive young-of-the-year ruffed and prairie grouse, some of which held over to October’s Indian summer. That’s when all the adolescent pheasants, Hungarian partridge, and bobwhite quail were picked off too.
There are still birds left in November, but their habitat is in flux, and they’re in survival mode due to hunting pressure and the worsening weather. All this makes successful November upland hunting a difficult—though not insurmountable—endeavor.
[ Read Full Post ]October 23, 2012
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Solid waterfowl dogs don’t just happen. Obedience, mouth manners, marking, and handling take months of daily training. But in the real world, many of us didn’t do enough of that prerequisite work, and now we’re in the blind, screaming at our dogs: “Listen! Sit! Stay! Come!” And panicking that our duck hunt is a bust.
Unless you retake control of your dog now, it’s not going to be a good day, for you or your hunting partners. But if you’ve done a semblance of pre-hunt training, your dog knows what’s expected of him, and a few simple reminders in the moment can salvage your outing.
1. Issue: Breaking and pacing
Without a doubt, breaking (going for a bird without being sent) and pacing in the blind are the most common problems you’ll see. Not only will a dog’s movement in the blind cost you birds, it can be deadly if the dog breaks in the direction hunters are shooting.
[ Read Full Post ]October 18, 2012
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Willie and Jase Robertson (left), from A&E's hit show Duck Dynasty, are unlikely TV superstars. And they're still hard-core outdoorsmen at heart.
Willie: Our show, Duck Dynasty, is a family show, and the reaction to it has been overwhelmingly positive. But I’ll tell you what—nobody wrote a manual for this. Nobody wrote a manual on how you run a business while all this is happening at the same time.
Jase: When we go out in public now we’re easily recognized. Basically, when you look like we do—before the show, people kept their distance. People thought I was homeless. Now it’s different. I was in Ohio last weekend, my plane got delayed, and I got there 60 seconds before I was going up on stage to speak. When I walked out, there were two families in the front row and they had “Duck Dynasty” spelled out in paint on their chests. People were cheering and hollering. People were going crazy and I hadn’t even said a word.
[ Read Full Post ]October 3, 2012
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Because cover can change over the course of the season, your hunting style should reflect that. You have to adapt when fields get harvested or sloughs dry up. Hunting pressure, time of day, number of hunting partners, and even your dog’s stamina can affect the productivity of each cover type.
If you are loath to adapt to habitat changes, just remember this: Pheasants are a simple species, driven to survive and fairly easy to predict. They sleep, eat, loaf, and then eat again. If you understand how birds use each cover type for each activity, you can put more roosters in your bag.
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