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The Great Duck Massacre of 2019-2020

Nutterbuster

Nutterbuster

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2017
Messages
10,069
Location
Where the skys are so blue!
I'm gearing up! In addition to the extra firepower provided by the new 12 gauge 500 (which I'm seriously considering jammoflaging a la @catman529) I just bought another half dozen AvianX dekes with some birthday funds. Getting some new netting for my canoe and kayak too, and hopefully I can figure out whatever is wrong with the electric start on my 15hp Lehr.

I've really enjoyed picking up duck hunting during our December lull. Part of the fun is the fact that there is not really anything to go off of for wood ducks. They don't seem to be specifically targeted by most "hardcore" duck hunters, and I've found precious little literature on them. So it's been very much a matter of watching the ducks, scratching my head, and then just giving stuff a whirl. It may not carry the same adrenaline rush as seeing big tines materialize out of the brush, but a woodie's flight call on a foggy morning gets goosebumps on my arms, and it's a sweet thing to watch one dishrag after pulling the trigger. I had a very successful season last year, and I'm hoping to really clean house on them this coming year.

Come on, Thanksgiving!
 
Our first 2 weeks of duck season is usually hot in NY for Woodies. You may have to get out of the kayak and head to some isolated pockets of water to find good areas for them. That seems to have helped me out. we hunt on swamp that's a hernia hike to get to and takes about 1.5 hours just to get too. Also if you targeting just wood ducks try just using a few Woodie deeks or non at all and rely on scouting on where to hunt.....Good luck bud
 
We get 4 days for woodies. There's a few around when season opens back up but it's nothing like the early October season.
 
Woodies are pretty much all we have where I hunt. We do have some decent early season teal but mostly wood ducks. I’ve found most of my spots deer hunting but haven’t messed with them much since the explosion in duck hunting that followed duck dynasty. Most people here hunt wood ducks over corn. Then they post four guys with 50 ducks on Facebook and cry when Mr green pants makes a visit. Good luck and have fun. Heck some of the places you are hunting you can shoot woodies and still get in the tree after deer by decent shooting light.
 
Good luck @Nutterbuster I only started hunting waterfowl last year. Have yet to see a woody but the the fella I hunt with says they show up to our regular spot (private big ass pond) on occasion.

Hopefully this year when I post "waterfowl down" I won't be asking about fluffy white feathers.
 
cb750 said:
Good luck @Nutterbuster I only started hunting waterfowl last year. Have yet to see a woody but the the fella I hunt with says they show up to our regular spot (private big ass pond) on occasion.

Hopefully this year when I post "waterfowl down" I won't be asking about fluffy white feathers.
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Wood ducks aren’t crazy about open water. Most of mine have come from small creeks you couldn’t navigate with a small kayak. The love our water oak acorns so any time the river gets high enough to flood the hardwood bottoms the will be in there.
 
That's good to know, there's a couple public places I know similar to that. I've seen ducks there in the past but I think just mallards.
 
To me duck hunting has always been a fun way to hang out with friends and joke around, it's a nice little getaway from the long quite days in a tree.

There is definitly something exciting about the foggy mornings and ducks calling/flying over just before daylight.
 
Hunted big water for ducks for over 30 years. Finally quit because so few ducks came through our area anymore. Hunting woodies is same as deer. Scout them to see where they go and get in between. If you hunt where they go, you’ll get 1 or 2 hunts then it’s burnt up. Woodies rarely decoy unless it’s a place they already want to go. Dekes May pull them in range if it’s a big pond. Have fun, I miss it.
 
Arrowsquirrel said:
Sounds like fun. Hope you keep us updated on how it works for.
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I will be. :)

Me, my dad, and a good buddy managed to limit out about every time we went last year. We didn't get to go too much, because we had a 100 year flood incident that made navigating the swamp too dangerous and spread the ducks out. But early on we hammered them.

My experience mirrors @EricS' pretty closely. I got into ducks maybe 5 seasons ago after seeing a crap ton of them out deer hunting. Figured what the heck, let's shoot 'em! My first hunts involved a small creek, a single shot 20, and a pair of hip boots. Me and my old man would walk about a mile back into the woods, sit down, and just see what showed up.

Then we found a bigger beaver pond, that held more ducks. But they didn't always land at our feet like they did in our little creek. So I bought a $10 call, and got pretty successful at coaxing them across the pond like turkeys. Like maybe 50/50 odds.

Then came a half dozen dekes on clearance. That helped. Then came the jerk rig.

Holy cow...

2-3 birds on a jerk rig is like crack if you're a wood duck. Throw in some hen calls and a drake whistle, and now you have a pretty good chance of bringing in birds across the water or in the air.

I also started stalking them on creeks just big enough to slip a kayak down. Since they fly early, you usually only get a half hour of shooting. We can't hunt then past 3pm down here to keep from shooting them when they roost. But stalking the little creeks let you hunt them all the way up to 3 if you wanted to. Also kept you from having to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn to hit the morning flight. Sleep in until all the other guys were coming back on, and then head out with the kayak and shoot a 3 bird limit before lunch.

I'll definitely update this thread as I try more stuff. My buddy wants to try some "causeway ducks" (mallards and gadwalls) but that area is so overcrowded compared to my neck of the woods that I have little interest. I do want to start seeing if I can maybe locate some different species in some of our cutovers up here. I have seen a couple of pintail out scouting for hogs, and some mergansers too.
 
Anyone have a merganser recipe? I've heard they taste terrible.
 
cb750 said:
Anyone have a merganser recipe? I've heard they taste terrible.
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Use for making Sausage/summer sausage or cook on a cedar plank and throw it out and eat the plank!!!LOL JK Fish ducks aren't very good,thats why I mix them into sausage or marinate heavily also
 
Ok. Sat for hours one day with nothing but them in front of me. Wanted to shoot them but didnt see the point if couldn't stand eating them.
 
RRussell said:
Use for making Sausage/summer sausage or cook on a cedar plank and throw it out and eat the plank!!!LOL JK Fish ducks aren't very good,thats why I mix them into sausage or marinate heavily also
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Same recipe I’ve always been told. Best em with a 2x4 to tenderize and then eat the 2x4


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Im a bit backwards from most of you all. I was raised a die hard waterfowler from age 4 with a BB gun. Didnt get into deer hunting till my 20's. I love to bow hunt but duck season really gets me fired up.
 
There is no good way to eat merganser. Hooded mergs arent nearly as bad as RB's or commons but not particularly good either.
 
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