Duckmen1 season thread

[duckmen1]

All my waterfowl has been mixed together and put into one big batch ready to make summer sausage. If I get more I will try and keep those separated for the remainder of the season. I can't garenteed I'll be able to make it to the barbecue though. But ill see how it goes. Would love to go.
I can say the big numbers of mergansers really died down and starting to see other ducks in the area like widgeon are finally starting to show. Teal mallards and shovelers as well as buffleheads and ringnecks are the main amount of birds I'm seeing. Usually I see tons of bluebills and coot. Not seeing any of those this year. Goldeneye have been showing well but I didn't pick up sea duck authorization so there safe this year.
Gonna end up working a long 5 day stretch starting Friday. So not sure if I will get any hunting in between then and Christmas. So gonna slow me down a bit. I'll try for a bit tomorrow probably.

[duckmen1]

A slow morning today. But the sunrise looked awesome. Did have a group of 4 hollywoods come in and ended up with a triple out of them. Saw birds later in the morning but other plans had me heading out.

[duckmen1]

Finally got back out to an area that was producing well all year. But this day was different. We waited forever for the flights of puddle ducks but they never showed. So instead of coming home empty we decided to do a bufflehead hunt. Got 15 buffleheads and two goldeneye. We made fun on that shoot. First group we shot at was a blast. Big raft of buffleheads came up and we took charge. I emptied my gun had time to reload and empty again. 6 shots drops 6 birds.  But between the three of us 12 birds were down off the first group. Later after waiting forever and not seeing the puddle ducks still I decided to hit another Buffy for my limit. 3 of us totaled for 17. Is was a nice relaxing day. But between water levels and extremely warm temps my areas have deminished the puddle ducks. Need colder temps and my areas should get good again.

[duckmen1]

My goal is to get back on the puddle ducks and geese. So gonna hit up some different areas on my next days off and do some Decoying on big water. Maybe my luck will get better. Got new calls that sound amazing and can't wait to put them to the test.

[lokidog]

This Frazier wind looks to cool things down.  I was hoping to fish, but with the forecast rwinds, maybe a duck hunt would be better.  Nice shooting on the buffies.

[duckmen1]

3 man shoot. Resulted in few birds but had fun. No birds flying today. Think theres just been too much pressure in my area. Birds are getting to the point they arent coming into my decoy spreads. Keep changing it up and trying new spreads in new areas. Scouting hasnt resulted in much of any birds seen. Gonna go on a day trip later this week to another spot and hope we see more action. Hoping to get a new personal record on this season duck totals. Last year got 101. Im at 73 now.

[duckmen1]

A good two man shoot today. A limit for me and 5 for my buddy. A mixed bag. And we passed on a mergnser because we new we had a better oportunity soon to follow. Missed a few. I got a double on nice drake wood ducks. Getting the big one mounted. Beautiful birds. Ducks decoyed well. Headed out to another area tomorrow. Not prime conditions for this spot but none the less there will be birds.

[lokidog]

Nice, seems really late for those wussy Wood Ducks.     Before moving west, Wood Ducks made up the majority of my waterfowl kills.

[duckmen1]

I don't ever see wood ducks while hunting. In fact in all these years I had only ever shot one drake woodie and that was it till yesterday. So it was a special moment for me. Had to work really hard to retrieve these birds though. Beavers had flooded out the area I got them and I couldn't wade the channel across to the other side. So had to go way up to a crossing point and head back down wading about waist to chest deep for about a 120 yards to get them while breaking about two inches of ice the whole way.

Today we limited on a few mallards, couple goldeneye, and the rest were buffleheads. Didn't see a whole lot of puddle ducks for the duration of our hunt so we hit up the divers. Then worked on some touch ups on our concealment to our blind and as we were getting ready to head home saw lots of puddle ducks started to show up in another one of our spots. But we couldn't do anything about it.  I will post a pic later when the pics are sent to me. I'm worn out.

[lokidog]

Sounds good, I swam for a woody once, late November in a spring fed pond in WI, brrrrrr.   

I probably won't be out this weekend as lots of folks are here for the long weekend, several near where I hunt.  I try not to wake them up when I can.   

Missed a Harlequin a couple of days ago, still smarting from that one.      

[duckmen1]

Went out to add to the bird numbers today. After seeing the ducks I decided to quickly turn my focus onto geese when they appeared. Dropped a triple on those. That was good enough for me. Called it a day and came home to relax.

[duckmen1]

Here is the trip from the other day. Worked our butts off. Then another hunter showed up and ruined the puddle duck action by chasing everything all morning in his boat and shooting under power. So we decided to hit the buffleheads up for practice. Ended up with a good shooting session. It was still a fun day overall. Two man limit. Mallards goldeneyes and buffleheads.

[duckmen1]

Very relaxing day. Very high water levels due to rain. Super foggy. Nothin I could see or here flying. Got these too that ended up swimming into the decoys before I saw them.

[lokidog]

Is that some kind of crossbreed on the right?

[duckmen1]

Drake Scaup. Nickname bluebills. Shoot a lot of them most years. Seen very little this year. But gonna make my next trip to an area I usually see them, so we will see what happens.