Ducks of the Year...Year 2009

[Hoss.]

thanks, The cooler is for the ducks, but beer fits in that cooler just fine...lol

[Jordanlybeck]

Wen't out today and ended up getting my first Wood Duck ever! We see plenty of them in the spring and summer but they are long gone before duck season gets here. Looks like everybody else has been having a good season too.

[thestuffedbird]

That's a sure sign of global warming/climate change.

[Gobblingfever]

Beautiful. Congrats on the woodie.

[hunte567]

Nice pics

[SteveP]

These are the results of a long weekend in northeast SD. At nine years old, daisy decides she is a pointer and a retriever. She retrieved two geese, 14 ducks, and two pheasants. That's more than all of her other retrieves put together. She's always found, or caught, downed birds, but now she's bringing them back! We ended up with a mixed bag, twelve or thirteen species I think.

[Gobblingfever]

a couple buffleheads in the group Steve? Looks like you had fun. Maybe next year.

[drakeman]

Today was my new dogs first retrieve.  Buddy was given to me by a coworker who had sent him to a trainer for six months when he was pup.  5 years later he decided he didn't like him living in the small city yard and never got to take him hunting other than a few dove hunts.  He knew I duck hunted a lot and lived in the country on some land.  He wanted me to have Buddy so he could hunt and do what he was trained to do.    

Today he got his first retrieve, a BWT.   It was a great hunt with my wife and two girls who all love to spend time in the duck blind with me.   I could have gotten skunked and it would not have mattered.  Spending time outdoors with my wonderful family and my new dog was priceless.  The hunting was very slow but the day was wonderful.

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[Pat Bradburn]

More cell phone pics. Went out to the saltwater today to get into divers and seaducks. Two of us hunting.

My limit:


Our birds combined:

[Jordanlybeck]

It's been raining here like crazy here for the past 4 days and the pastures are finally starting to flood. A friend and I scoped out a nice puddle at a local dairy farm thats been holding about 60-70 Mallards and Wigeons. by the time we got the decoys set up the birds were already itching to get in. We both had our limits in 45 minutes. We ended up with 10 mallards,3 Wigeons and a Shoveler.

Heres my half of the birds



Some scouting pictures from yesterday

[mark11]

in the first scouting picture is that a hybrid drake mallard in the center of the picture, it is hidden by some brush but looks to hve a green head, and crls in the tail but has brownish colored sides

[Jordanlybeck]

thats patches! I've been after him for a couple of years. I'm not sure what what he's crossed with but he reminds me of a larger version of a choclate call duck.

Heres a better picture of him

[WishinIWasFishin]

Just a few late season mallards and my first teal from Western New York. Interesting strategy is working well for us late in the year: Birds have been decoyed and shot at for a while now, so we set up decoys on one side of the pond, and purposely hunt the other side of it, has worked well so far! Birds purposely land away from the dekes! Trying like hell for my first woodie, they're looking great this year plumage wise. Great birds everyone!

[thestuffedbird]

That is really bizarre, because I was thinking of doing just that when I drove past my slough today.  When I set up there last week, the birds all went to the other side of the slough.  I went to that side, and they were so close to the edge I jump shot them.  Maybe a human decoy to lay on the shoreline.  A new use for department store mannequins.  Watch those hunting catalogs for "Human Decoys", maybe windsock, maybe motorized with flapping arms.  Would they work better in camo or butt naked?  I think I just made my first $million$.

[Pat Bradburn]

Hahahahaha!!! You guys don't know how many times several of us have talked about that when hunting the local public zones on the wildlife area. Department store mannequin in full Mossy Oak or Realtree camo hunkered down holding a fake shotgun in front of a spread of decoys. Then we could stand across the pond in yellow or red rain coats with binoculars or tripods... you know... birdwatching gear. Just keep the shotguns handy and probably have ducks landing within range all morning.    .

The other idea for the same area was a blind made to look like a giant loaf of grocery store bread. Then a whole spread of fake bread slices scattered all around. Can't be real because of baiting laws  .