So I just got home from my weekend away for opening weekend of duck hunting season. It was a good trip, with a limit of ducks for 3 guys on Saturday and 7 birds down on Sunday. As always the shooting could have been better, but in the grand scheme of things it was a great weekend on the marsh. As we were paddling back both days I took some mental notes as we talked to other hunting parties on the way their hunts went. Here is a list of my thoughts (I have touched on some of these in the past):
1. Decoy spreads - I am pretty hard on people about this, but I see it over and over again and it never ceases to amaze me. There were guys with duck decoys out 50 yards and they would complain about the birds always wanting to just skirt the decoys and therefore not being able to get quality shots. One party had two Air Lucky Ducks (here we can't use the motorized motion duck decoys like the Mojo duck decoys until after the second weekend) set 45 yards from their blind. If these things work like they are supposed to then you have ducks landing for shots at 45-55 yards. Not a good scenario, make sure all of your decoys are well within your comfortable shooting range. I prefer 25-30 yards myself.
2. Sometimes you have to work a little harder to get that limit of ducks. We got to our hunting spot 30 mins before anyone else was even in the vicinity of our spot. In addition to that we walked our canoe about three quarters of a mile to get to an easier place to paddle from in the dark. It paid off in spades. We had better shooting than just about everyone else on our duck hunting marsh. The guys with the next best shooting were the two next parties that got to the landing. It won't always be fruitful, but exerting the extra energy is often what sets aside ok duck hunters from above average to great duck hunters.
Hopefully this post will help solidify some of the mistakes that I see people make and allow you to avoid them for better results in your next trip to the duck blind.