Hunting Washington Forum

Date hunted 11/15/25 opening day:

Mother nature is not being nice to us down here in south Louisiana. Fog in the mornings, low tides and no wind all bad circumstances for a duck hunt. Despite those conditions we had a good hunt Saturday morning. My son, his friend and I were able to shoot a 18 duck limit mostly teal. We did have 4 pintail, one drake and 3 hens. Two other guys hunting on our lease shot their 12 duck limit are in the picture.

As the hunt went on we watched the water drain out of the marsh. In the old pirogue days there would have been concern and worry about having to paddle 100 yards or more back to a boat in deep water. Picking up ducks that were shot and decoys nearly impossible. With our new 40HP ProDrive with full power reverse on a 19 foot Go Devil boat we picked up everything in the slop you see. Absolute game changer.

Reminds me of NY with their magazine ban where it could not hold more than 10 rounds or something like that. People just started carrying 4-5 guns in their vehicle (AKA .... a NY reload).

Cool buck. Thanks for sharing.

My vote is Avian X decoys. I have 9 dzn mallard and wigeon. Have had them for 4 years now, they have held up great.

OK, I got some time to do my install over the weekend.

Here is what I ended up with (Truck is an F350 Super Duty crew cab):
• CB: Cobra 75 All Roads
• Primary Antenna:  Firestik FS3-B ( 3`Foot ) FS Series Tunable Tip CB Antenna With Extra Black Tip  650 watts max
• Backup Antenna: FireStik FS-4BK 4' (r) Ii Fs Series Tunable Tip Cb Antenna - 900 Watts Black
• Ford hood mount - supports a 4 foot max antenna length.
• FireStick FIRESTIK K4-8R18 FIRE-Ring 18`Foot Coax with Stud and SS-3H Spring
• SWR meter: Astatic PDC2 100 watt power and SWR meter

I connected the power directly to the battery and ran the power and the antenna cable thru the firewall into the cab. 
The CB black box I mounted behind the rear seat, drivers side.

After tuning the 3 foot antenna, I was only able to get a 1.9 reading on the SWR meter (on 1 and 40 - it was about 1.6 on 20). 
I removed and tuned the 4 foot antenna as well so I can use it in situations where I want a bit more reach.  I was able to get that SWR reading down to 1.6 for both 1 and 40.

While that is probably good enough as it is sub 2.0, I think my issue is likely an sub-optimal ground.  I did not sand away any of the paint under the hood mount as I really do not want to do that if it can be avoided.  I may try a grounding strap directly to the frame before I sand away paint.