EP231 Break These 5 Top Duck Hunting Bad Habits

Nothing can help you bring home more ducks than setting bad habits right. You cannot spend your way out of bad habits and no amount of gear can compensate for them. On this episode I talk about how to identify and correct some habits that will make you a better duck hunter. 

All you need to do to form a bad hunting habit is nothing. Making bad habits will happen by default, breaking them takes humility and work. But there is no faster way to improve and become a more successful waterfowl hunter and breaking bad habits. 

Some bad habits include:

  1. Not Practicing – Nothing will help you take home more ducks than practicing in the office season and there is no better and more realistic way to practice than by doing a few sporting clays courses. Put some of your gear money into a practice fund.
  2. Not Testing – Every gun, ammo, and choke may produce different and sometimes very different results. If you do not pattern test your gun every time you change something in your setup, you will not know what your performance and limitations are. 
  3. Lack of Stealth – Whether you are in a blind or on foot, stealth is vital to duck hunting. It is too easy to get careless and think you are invincible because you don’t see any ducks. But that doesn’t mean the ducks cannot see you. Do everything you can to minimize movement and keep your volume level low.

Somehow duck hunting feels different than deer or turkey hunting. The practice, sighting in, patterning, etc. that we often put into those pursuits seems specific to them. We often do not think we should apply the same diligence to duck hunting in the off season. But knowing our gear and sharpening our shooting skills matters just as much for duck hunting, possibly even more. This is a bad habit that is somewhat cultural to the sport. People assume they are proficient with their shotgun and ammo just because. 

The reality is that years ago these habits were likely started by people who lived in rural areas and often hunted constantly with their shotgun. They went out after turkeys, doves, pheasants, qual, rabbits, squirrels and more. Then the next day they picked up their shotgun and went out for ducks. That worked a lot better in those kinds of situations where constant shotgun use with the same ammo produced skills that were always honed.

But today things are very different. For those few who do hunt that many things and that often, they are often using different ammunition, required by law, and thus are not as proficient with it as they might like to think. Waterfowl ammo can behave very differently. Then there are the rest of hunters who rarely pick up a shotgun and just grossly overestimate their abilities. 

Listen to the episode to hear more about these and other bad habits.  Here also is a video I did on the top thing you can buy to enable you to shoot more ducks. 

EP230 How To Get 3 Ducks Hunts Into 1 Day

If you have a whole day to hunt ducks, why only hunt them in the morning? The truth is you can cram three unique duck hunts into a single day if you live in the right area. On this episode I talk about how to do everything possible to take home a limit of ducks over the course of a day.

The morning hunt is the traditional one that most people identify with, sitting in a blind with decoys out in front and calling birds in. This is a great way to hunt, and effective in many places if you’ve done your scouting. But it is far from the only way. This is likely the best way to start the day though. Get out early and try to bring home a limit of ducks early. 

The mid-day hunt takes on a different form. Once you have packed things up and gotten something to eat, you can run and gun, cover ground, and work to sneak up on birds on ponds, streams, and other bodies of water. This can be just as effective if you know the water in your area and have put together a good circuit.

The evening hunt is your last chance but it provides a good chance to get it done. The premise here is you have a whole day to hunt and do not want to go home empty handed or shorthanded. Hunting at the end of the day can be just as productive as any other time.

Listen to the episode to hear about all 3 hunting strategies for an all-day hunt. 

EP229 Trophy Hunter vs. Butcher On How Long To Wait To Recover Deer

If you ask a trophy hunter and a butcher how long you should wait to recover a shot deer, you may get different answers. Each has different goals, and there are pros and cons to the advice of each. But you need to be aware of both sides to help determine what is best for you.

Here is the episode of mentioned about how to track a wounded deer.

Trophy Hunter. You’ve seen them on TV, YouTube or elsewhere; professional hunters who shoot truckloads of bucks every year. They have a very admirable quantity; they want to recover the deer at all costs. It is a good philosophy, one that many hunters need more of. But the big question is what do they define as recovering the deer? Recovering the antlers at all costs is one thing, recovering the meat is not the same thing.

Butcher. The deer processers and professional butchers are not often on TV, few people ask for their advice, and few people even think about what they have to say. Butchers do their job after the deer is recovered and professional hunters are recovering the deer so why talk to the butcher about it? The answer is obvious, the butcher will handle and process more deer than the professional trophy hunter ever will. No one cares more about the meat than the butcher and no one has more to say about when you should recover a deer than a good butcher.

Listen to this episode as I share insights I have gained after hearing from several professional butchers who are also hunters.

 

 

EP228 How To Hunt Deer In December

December can be one of the hardest months to hunt deer, but if you know how to leverage the unique elements of this phase of the season to your advantage, you can be very productive! On this episode I talk about what you need to know to have success hunting deer in December. 

Come December and the rut is over, bucks are worn out from the rut and spend most of the daylight hours bedded down resting and eating. Does find themselves scrambling to put on pounds for the winter. Deer are behaving differently and are harder to hunt. If that were not enough, many states place their firearms deer season at around this time frame putting tremendous hunting pressure on these deer.

Cover is also changing and as grass dies and leaves fall, the places deer can hide well become more and more scarce. Couple that with shorter and shorter days and deer can much more readily wait out the shorter daytime in order to move and feed at night. They become food focused and cover obsessed. By the second or third day of the hunting season, the entire deer herd can seem like it has become nocturnal. 

This is the most difficult time of the year to hunt whitetails. But hope is not lost. If you know what to do and how to hunt you can still find success and maximize the time you spend in the woods to get the best odds for your hours.

The trick is to know when and where to hunt. Because going to an October or November spot or hunting at September hours will not produce results as well in December. Deer can become like a different animal at this point in the season, some of it is natures timing and some is the result human pressure and influence. 

Listen to the podcast episode to get the tactics and strategy you need to make the most of December hunts.

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