Category: Duck Hunting

When the winter sets in, is it really worth the time and effort to go waterfowl hunting? Can you really be successful? The answer to those questions may surprise you, however there is not a blanket one-size-fits-all answer either. But there are principles I provide in this episode that can help you answer that question no matter where you are or where you hunt. 

There is a very important and often overlooked truth when it comes to late season duck hunting, and it is this. In most places, not all of the ducks leave for the winter. Now in Alaska, yes, the ducks are gone. But in New York and Pennsylvania and Indiana, and many other northern states, there are birds there year-round. If you can’t find any ducks that does not mean there aren’t any ducks.

The single biggest indicator of ducks is open water. If you can find water that has not frozen, be it lakes, streams, creeks, or rivers, you will find ducks. Or rather ducks can and do live there year-round. Some people have their best hunting in the winter because it concentrates where the ducks are and can hang out.

Another very often overlooked element is the concept of a fluid migration. Ducks do not just fly dead south until they hit the Gulf of Mexico and perch on the shore all winter. Many fly south until they find more comfortable weather, and when there are warm weeks they will drift back north some. They may be pushed further south again by a cold front, but birds move a lot. A duck may fly 100 miles for breakfast. They are very capable and mobile creatures. If you do not see birds in your area in the late season, just wait. Cold or warm weather could bring birds in from different directions.

The biggest consideration of late season hunting is safety. Falling in a stream when its 70 degrees outside is inconvenient. If it’s 20 degrees, that can be life threatening. You need very safe strategies to set up decoys and recover birds if you are hunting around water. Having gear that is up to the task is also important. You need to be able to stay warm and dry even in harsh weather conditions. High wind is much more common this time of year as well. But I think this can be a very effective time of year for most hunters. 

Late season hunting can be very good hunting, some of the best of the year, but it takes a little different approach.

Listen to the full podcast episode to hear all of the details. 

Are you looking for ways to be more effective sneaking up on ducks? Jump hunting is more challenging than using traditional decoys and spreads, however it has numerous benefits. On this episode I cover numerous tips and strategies to make you more effective hunting waterfowl on foot. Tetra Hearing Free 2-Year Service Plan. Just add this Service Plan to your cart and use this code at checkout: NEWHUNTERSGUIDE

Jump hunting is a very fun and very ethical activity if done thoughtfully and safely. This is not the same thing as the proverbial “sitting duck”. These are not the ducks at the park that may eat bread out of your hand. In the wild, they are cautious, anxious birds that have keen senses and can instantly take off like a cruise missile and disappear forever. If you can sneak up on ducks in their native habitat and get a shot at them, you have done an impressive thing. 

It is one the easier ways to get started waterfowl hunting and requires a minimal amount of gear. All you really need is a shotgun, camo, and a way to retrieve the birds. Oh, and strategy, lots and lots of strategy.

The basic principles are simple, sneak up on birds that are on the water or on the shore and shoot them before they fly out of range. Sounds easy. Unfortunately, it can be really hard. The biggest tip you can employ is to use terrain to your advantage. Put land and dirt between you and the water. Do not break the plain of sight with the birds until you are as close as possible and be aware that the moment you do, stealth becomes extremely critical. 

Raised banks and hills can keep ducks and geese form seeing or hearing you. You must still be quiet and use caution, but you should be much more able to move around if you can position some terrain between you and the birds. Once you begin to make your approach to the water, you have to try to get to within 40 yards of the birds. The best way to do this is to move under cover, and only when the wind blows.

The wind does multiple things to help the sneaking hunter. It creates noise that helps cover the sounds of your approach. And maybe more importantly, the wind creates motion in the woods. Your movement blends into the shifting branches, blowing leaves, swaying grasses, weeds, and so on. The wind can be your biggest ally when trying to hunt birds on the water. 

Listen to this whole podcast episode to hear all 10 tips for jump hunting ducks on the water.

Are you tired of hauling a lot of heavy gear into the woods? There is a false perception that you need a ton of gear to hunt waterfowl successfully. In this podcast episode I am going to cover five minimalist duck hunting setup that are low cost and light on equipment.

Waterfowl hunting is one of, if not the most equipment intensive types of hunting. There are so many things to buy and use that you can spend your life building out the perfect set of gear. For new hunters especially that just isn’t practical, but diverging from the norm is not welcomed by the establishment. People with decades worth of gear accumulated don’t love the idea of new people heading out into the woods with minimal gear and being successful. So other ways of hunting are often suppressed by the culture. But that’s crazy and there are lots of great ways to hunt ducks and geese with minimal gear.

When I say minimal, I think looking at it from both the standpoint of hauling that gear in and reducing the needed investment to successfully hunt waterfowl. If you are able to get a handful of items and still take ducks, that is a big win for a new hunter, and it is very possible. In fact, there are many ways to do it.

An obvious approach is the conventional hunting strategy with minimal gear. A set of waders, a half dozen decoys, a call, and a shotgun can be all that you need to be effective and bring home birds. Sure, 6 dozen decoys may work better, but one person can easily carry 6 singles into the woods with a pair of waders, improvise a blind and get shots at ducks. 

Jump hunting is another great way to hunt, as long as you are not in an area that is overrun with other hunters. You do not want to be walking around and messing up other people’s hunts. But provided you can get away from most other hunters, you can have a great time sneaking through the woods trying to get to the edge of streams, creeks, lakes, ponds, and puddles looking for unsuspecting birds. All you need to do this is a gun and a way to retrieve the birds from the water, typically a backpack with breathable waders stuffed inside works great.

Listen to this full podcast episode to hear all the five minimalist duck hunting strategies and which are a good fit for you and your hunting style.

If you want to hunt ducks, you need to be able to hide. But how can you do that cheap? Are there cost effective approaches to waterfowl hunting blinds, or do you need to spend big money? On this episode I cover four strategies for hiding on the cheap.

Hiding is synonymous with waterfowl hunting. You must have cover if you want birds to voluntarily come into shooting range. And you need to have cover even more if you are trying to sneak up on the ducks.

The hunting industry has answered this fundamental need with a great many expensive contraptions such as A-Fram blinds, lay out blinds, dog blinds, and many more. Generally speaking, these options all work in the right situations. But are there cheaper ways?

Not long ago, none of these hiding options existed. They were nowhere to be found. All hunters built or improvised their own blinds, most often temporary ones, used for just one hunt. Occasionally they had the luxury of using one a couple of times. Setting up a blind was as much of part of the morning routine as putting on your waders or setting out the decoys. But today, much of this has been lost, replaced with expensive alternatives.

In this podcast episode I harken back to the days of waterfowl ingenuity, empowering hunters to hide for little or no budget at all. Some of these options are clear cut, while others are unorthodox, but each one works in the right situation. If you want cheap options for concealment while hunting waterfowl, you need to listen to this short episode.

Spoiler alert, a lot of expensive blinds you can buy save little to no time, are not less work, and do not hide you better than many of the strategies in this episode. There are times when purchased blinds are very helpful, but more often than not, they provide comparable effectiveness with increased complexity.  You do not need that to get started. You can go into the woods tomorrow, and setup a good hide for cheap or free and hunt ducks.

You can save your money for other waterfowl hunting necessities like waders, call, decoys, ammo, shotguns, camo, boots, gloves, sleds, etc. Buying a blind is always something you can do later. But you do not need to do it to get started. In fact, many expert waterfowl hunters never do it all. They hunt every day of their season, year after year, following the simple strategies I detail in this podcast episode.

If you want to buy blinds, great, go for it. But you should also know these simple strategies to help you in uncommon hunting scenarios when purchased hunting blinds are not as effective or you just cannot get them to the spot you are hunting.

Listen to the whole episode to hear the details.

Every duck hunter makes mistakes, it is unavoidable. But there are some big terrible blunders that are easily avoidable with just a little bit of knowledge. On this episode I discuss three huge blunders and give you the simple insights needed to never make them yourself. 

The definition of a blunder is a stupid or careless mistake. You will not be able to avoid all mistakes, but you can avoid blunders. One of the best ways to learn is from the mistakes and blunders of others. Which is why I share some of the big blunders I’ve watched other duck hunters make. Some of them are a bit funny they are so bad. But each teaches us valuable lessons to become better duck hunters.

Listen to this full podcast episode to hear about the blunders and the lessons learned. 

No matter how well we shoot and how good our ammo, there will still be wounded and crippled ducks that need humanely and quickly put down. This is not a fun subject, but it is something all duck hunters need to be aware of. On this episode I talk about various scenarios of wounded ducks and give three different techniques to quickly dispatch them with minimal suffering.

Shotgun patterns are imperfect and are not capable of instantly killing a duck every time, even at reasonable ranges. Compound this with the fact that hunters are not perfect shots, and you will unfortunately have to deal with wounded ducks on a semi regular basis. This can be minimized with practice, more experience judging distance, and high-quality ammunition. But it will still happen from time to time. So, you must be equipped and prepared to deal with it under field conditions.

Wounded ducks may have varying degrees of mobility. They may be able to swim at full speed, above or below water, they may be able to walk or even run on land. They may be able to partially fly, they may even be stunned and able to full fly once they shake it off. To dispatch a wounded duck, you may very well have to catch it first. This is easiest if you have a hunting dog. If not, you will want to be very mobile and able to give chase readily. 

One of the biggest lessons I have learned when hunting without a dog is to never take my eyes off a downed bird until I have it in hand. Always recover and deal with downed birds immediately. Never wait. You do not know if a bird is dead or not until you recover it. I have had birds belly up on the water that looked as dead as dead can be and 5 minutes later wake up and try to escape. Get your birds and confirm they are dead.

Do not hesitate to take a follow-up shot if a bird falls to the water but is still mobile. Every second will put the duck further away from you and further from ideal range. The longer you wait, the lower the chances will be of you recovering the bird. This often leads to the bird suffering worse and much longer. We need to avoid this as much as possible. 

One you have a crippled bird in hand, there are numerous methods for dispatching the duck. In summary they include:

1. Swatting Loads
2. Cervical Dislocation.
3. A Pithing Tool

Listen to this podcast episode to hear the specifics about those techniques and methods to find the one that works best for you.

Here is the visual guide for how to humanely dispatch a downed duck that I mentioned in the episode as well. These are some of the most important skills a waterfowl hunter can take into the field, because treating game with respect and preventing suffering is of the upmost importance.

Always work to judge distance well, to take ethical shots, to pattern test your shotgun, ammo, and choke tube combo, and do not push your limits. The fewer ducks that are crippled the better. but when a bird is wounded you must deal with it quickly. I wish I would have been able to listen to this podcast episode before I started waterfowl hunting. I ran into this issue firsthand and did not know the ideal ways to deal with it, that was not fun. Hopefully you will be better prepared than I was. 

Duck decoys range from $40 to $400 a dozen, and beyond. Are the fancy duck decoys better? If so, by how much? On this episode I talk about the differences between cheap and expensive duck hunting decoys to help you understand how to weigh the pros and cons of each to make informed decisions. 

Keep in mind, for generations hunters carved crude decoys from wood, used painted milk jugs, and improvised their own decoys out of whatever rudimentary materials that could find or create that would float for awhile. And these decoys worked reasonably well. Even the cheapest decoys on the market today are drastically better than what most hunters used throughout waterfowl hunting history. We are a little bit spoiled today with the caliber of simple and low-cost options available. So, are expensive decoys really that much better?

There are three main areas that expensive decoys give you advantages over cheaper decoys. They are detail, durability, and technology.

1. Detail refers to both the paint job and the life like diversity of different duck positions. Cheaper decoys often all look identical while more expensive ones have a variety of posses that make them appear more lifelike.
2. Durability is a factor of two different areas. One is making the decoys sink resistant and the other is the durability of the paint and finish. Only one of these is a legitimate point to consider when it comes to cheap vs. expensive decoys.
3. Technology is a bit more complex. Because ducks can see certain colors and spectrums that people cannot, some decoys are designed to be more visible to ducks in low light but people cannot see those differences with our eyes. Expensive decoys sometimes come setup with this technology.

The big question is how much difference can expensive decoys make in these areas to be worth their price tag? Are $400 decoys really 10x better than $40 decoys? The simple answer is no, of course not. The more you pay, the less you get. It is a system of diminishing returns. However, if you pay more, you do get more. You just do not get a lot more. So the hunter able to pay large sums of money for the best decoys does get better decoys but they are only a little bit better. 

So, is it worth it? Only you can decide that. You need to listen to this entire podcast episode to get all of the information you need to judge the pros and cons of expensive decoys and decide which decoys are best for you to use.

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.