Lets talk some duck hunting for a change

[420 racin]

"Sure enough around 4:20 I woke up."

420 you say?? Need to get up a little bit earlier so you can be ready by 420!

[aweyerman]

I'm a hunt whore. I'll hunt with just about anyone.. here's a funny story from last year.. it was the last day my wife was off for crissums vac. It wad a weekday and I had to work but had a little time for a close by am hunt. Hell now that I think about it I think I made up my mind that I would try and hunt the next moning around 11 pm the night befor. Actually I dint even set the alarm I just figured if I woke and felt Like it I would go. Sure enough around 4:20 I woke up. I was like ok what do I do.. I didn't want to hunt my private hole close to town. So I packed up my gear and figued I ride around to the boat ramps of the Ross b.. my plan was to pull up to the ramp. Tellem Bigwater was ready and see if anyone had any extra room. Sure enuff 1st ramp I pulled up to there was a guy by himself gettin ready to go. Turns out I had met the guy a month earlier. He said hell yea com on let's do it. I was tickled pink that my plan had worked. Even made a nice double on mallets that am

I actually picked a guy up one morning that did that. His buddy with the boat didn't show so he went with me.

[gator]

ty, who i hunt with kinda depends on the situation. if i'm up at l'anguille, there's typically about 4 folks to a pit (pat may correct me as he has the books but it's about right). there's not a real set order to things, if you where in a hot pit and another pit was cold, odds are, the next hunt he's gonna work to get the guys that were in a pit that didn't hammer em a good shoot.

at the lease over in the mississippi delta, i'm there alot of mornings by myself, but i also hunted with several folks on any given day....just depended who showed up really.

in january public hunting old brakes and timber for the most part...i rarely, though there have been a few exceptions, asked anyone to go. i enjoy leaning up against a tree and just "being in it". i don't need, nor typically do i want, conversation in a few of those places.......i just want quiet, work ducks, and watch gauge or trapper work.

my work schedule is strange in that it's a 5/2 split deal so i hunt a lot of weekdays. up until this past year, i worked a 7 on/7 off so i pretty much hunted weekdays on public ground exclusively and would truck up to l'anguille for the weekends. this schedule affords me a good many days to hunt. i'd have to look back in my journal but i probably average about 30-35 days a year, give or take.

cool thread and interesting to read, justin

[augustus_65]

After reading the replies on this thread I suppose I can count myself among the fortunate few to have a group of friends dedicated to hunting. I started duck hunting in the Mobile Delta and one of my lifelong best friends was almost always along for the ride. He lives in Georgia now but he is in a club in Mississippi and we get the chance to hunt together a time or two each season. I am also fortunate to have a group of four or five guys in my club in Mississippi who have been my hunting partners for several years including Bigsprig who has been a friend since college and is one of my favorite people to share a blind with. We have a few topwater members but our core group is all about killing some ducks. One of my clubs members and good friends lives right up the road from me so we chase ducks around here just about any morning either of us can get free. I am also fortunate to have a few friends scattered across the state just a committed to chasing critters as I am and we generally share a few hunts each year. I usually get to spend 20 to 30 days a season chasing ducks and about the same number deer hunting as I can deer hunt just a few minutes from home and tend to slip off more than a few afternoons in January when our rut gets going. Turkey season is when the true insanity kicks in. I hunt every morning and have a few buddies who also hunt everyday so we swap out hunts throughout the season to get a change of scenery and harrass different birds. Having a true friend that will share the joys and sorrows of the hunt with you, who will be there at every opportunity in every kind of weather, is a true blessing and I am blessed to have a few such friends.

[Greenhead329]

Used to have a tight knit group of 4 of us (counting myself) but life happened. (Moving off, college, marriage, etc). I now usually go with me and one other person at a time, but I have 4 different friends I rotate hunting with. I still manage a couple of hunts with my old friends.

[feather]

I usually hunt w/ my 21 yr old son who has been with me on nearly every hunt for the past eleven years. Occasionally one of his brothers will come along but usually it's just the two of us. We'll sometimes join another party at the ramp but many times we'd rather hunt by ourselves..too much chatter kinda gets to us. Wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Usually go 20-25 times a year. I also don't mind hunting alone..especially late season field hunting in shallow water. Last day of the season I killed four mallards and two teal with the final shot/kill being at 11:50am just before the noon deadline on public....very gratifying. All alone out there and plenty of time to appreciate it all.

[eSJay]

Good thread ty.
For me, things have changed a bit over the years. I used to pretty much hunt exclusively with the same group. That was back before life priorities took over & most of us moved in different directions. I still get to hunt with a couple of those guys every now & that's pretty special, but lately I have no set group which sucks sometimes, but it has given me the chance to meet & hunt with new folks. I also enjoy a lonesome hunt with just God & I. I don't mind hunting with a newbie every once in a while to introduce them to the sport, but the sucess rate is definately lower in these situations simply because of small mistakes made by people that lack experience. Group experience & knowing your role means a lot more than some folks realize.
Envious of your group & others that have the same type groups.

[Double R 2]

I like mornings the ducks fly better than when they don't, and am the first to admit that I'm not out there to watch the sunrise. That said, there's plenty days we come back with light straps that were magical nonetheless for reasons far beyond dead ducks. For several years I've progessively transitioned ino a full-context kind of hunter. I like it all. The people, especially, but also the place, it's history and local, club or group traditions. I wouldn't swap the stories told in duck blinds for a lifetime of limits. I like good dog work and am am blessed with friends that invite me as well as Delta. A mile and half walk through woods and sloughs to kill ducks in a public hole that a host points to the spot hid daddy raised him onto his shoulders to peer at his first wigeon; crack of dawn "beer bird" hitting the water; an older gentlemen pointing across the way at a spot and saying that where he first hunted the hole 45 years ago when he was still in college; someone's dog getting sick while you're turning tight circles in the boat clearing ice from a hole; shooting a 135 year-old piece of functional side by side art and seeing ducks fall like you're waving a magic wand; a pot of opening day teal and andouille sausage with maple syrup; cleaning the linoleum with a spilled whiskey drink; whisking a retriever off the couch for a place to stay; knowing the driver of the atv is a bonafide expert because you're a 2 miles from camp, through sloughs and over logs, and the sumbitch aint let so much as a drop of sprite and charter spill from his foam cup; feeling you legs burn and sucking your lungs back into your chest pulling a pirough through low-tide slop, rafts of cans lifting off the bay a mile away, bone-in canvasback breasts simmering on the stove in grandma's traditional holy-trinity recipe; a hole on the river no longer recognized since it was just a bare sandbar when you hunted it 15 years prior, but you know from landmarks across the way this is exactly where you and a former buddy killed snows, specks, honkers, mallards and a black duck years ago dug in to the bar; a tall flying whistler for falling long enough you could whistle dixie, and you've seen you old-salt buddy do it many times before but it's always memorable, like the first firework explosion on the 4th; famous public holes with folks that have hunted them forever; quiet out of the way spots on the brink of civilization where a son kills his first duck after falling in along the way. All along the way, dead ducks and memories. It's who we are and what we do.

[Double R 2]

I heard an interesting statistic the other day I'll take slight liberty with in sharing: 30 some-odd percent of duck hunters participate in online chatrooms. Half that many deer hunters regularly participate online, and half as many turkey hunters as deer hunters participate regularly online. I think that pretty much says that wingshooters, in general are social creatures. Either that or internet scouters.

[crackhead]

Charter and water! FYI. Ha.

I second your love for the sport!!

[crackhead]

The crazy thing ab our group is we do everything together. It's like 8 or nine of us. Fish, travel, party, hang out, dove hunt. Basically at least one to two weekends do something. It's ages 24-40. Both girls and guy friends. And like y'all have said. I'm lucky

[Double R 2]

Duck hunting and house moving best define the word "friend" and keep it in proper perspective.

[chevy01234]

Duck hunting and house moving best define the word "friend" and keep it in proper perspective.

Hell of a quote right there and so true.

[medic11]

I got plenty of friends I would call to help me move, don't mean I would call those same ones to duck hunt .

No that was a very true statement about duck hunting and house moving, always got a core group you can depend on. They might b***h alot more during the house moving though.

[Chuckle12]

The crazy thing ab our group is we do everything together. It's like 8 or nine of us. Fish, travel, party, hang out, dove hunt. Basically at least one to two weekends do something.

Same with us. Been in each others weddings, lived under one roof for a short while, fishing, frog giggin', duck hunting, hog hunting, "@#$%#" off, beer drinkin', etc. And you can bet we're probably gonna f up something when we're all together.