New to Duck Hunting

[Seabass77]

A friend of mine took me duck hunting for the first time last year and I already have the itch to get out and hunt again. I would like to put together a small arsenal of equipment to go out and hunt myself next season but I’m not quite sure what I need. I also have a few questions.

Should I look for weighted decoys or waters weighted decoys? I plan on hunting ponds and small rivers/lakes.

I was thinking of looking for a small canoe to retrieve ducks, put out decoys etc. Any other suggestions?

Here is my guess of what I might need:

- Decoys – mostly puddle ducks I would guess since I’m hunting small water?

- Canoe or boat

- Duck call

- Good pair of waders? Camo and insulated maybe?

- Misc Camo

- I already have a gun.

- Do I need a robo-duck? It seemed to make a big difference when I went last year.

Thanks for all of your help.

[Guest]

i think I can help you out a little bit.

I guess it really depends on what your budget is. Most of us start start duck hunting fairly young and have to suffer with shoddy equipment in the beginning that progresses over time.
I would start out with a good pair of waders. Get the insulated kind. You will enjoy duck hunting a lot more if you can stay somewhat warm.

As far a decoys go if you are hunting a smaller body of water 2-3 dozen mallard decoys will work fine. I would throw in maybe 2 goose decoys though. If you have a boat then type of keel doesn't matter, but if you have to pack them in get the flow through water keel.

As far as the boat or canoe goes I would get a duck boat that is light enough to handle by yourself. They are safer and there is more room to store stuff. I have a canoe that is 17ft long and it is a little too much by myself.

When it comes to calls I would get one duck call and one goose call and learn how to use them. The big river flute style goose call are about as easy to use as them come. For duck calls get one that comes with a video tape on how to use. Maybe a carlson call, or some other good call. You don't need the cocobola super duck call when you first start. A good place to start would be ammo craft in hopkins. The gentleman who owns the shop will steer you in the right direction on both calls and calling instruction.

Hope I helped

[myzee13]

I'm no expert, but I've been duck hunting 22 yrs,and I've gained some experience.
Your equipment depends totally on your budget.Decoys range anywhere from $24-$120/doz. I'd personnally start out with a dozen weighted keel Flambeau's.
Duck calls, in my opinion, are a neccesity!--especially if you're hunting rivers and small sloughs.A single-reed is much more diverse in tone and in my opinion, easier to blow. Start less expensive with, for instance, a Buck Gardner single. Don't get discouraged if you sound bad at first! It takes a few years---you have to practice. An instructional tape is a must for beginners.
A boat--if you're going to hunt by yourself, I'd reccomend buying a point-to-point, if you're going with a buddy(lot's of great stories and b.s. happens while hunting) look at the classifies or even small boat dealers--this time of year, you can find a 12'-14' for pretty cheap--don't wait 'till next fall--that same boat will cost you a lot more.
Waders-- if you don't have a dog, get a pair of neoprene chest waders and be done with it.Hodgeman's have always been my favorite--don't penny-pinch here. It makes for a long day when you're cold and wet.
I hope I helped! Good luck, shoot straight, and above all respect the landowners.

[Wigeon]

I too would go with the weighted Flambaeu decoys, I have them and they work awesome.A real good pair of waders is a must, camo is good and insulated is great for cold late season water.The type of call you want is all up to what you feel comfortable with. I have gone through alot and I am now comfortable with the ones I have(duck commander calls).I have different camo for the different locations I hunt(fields,catails,and along trees of the river).You dont have to have a robo-duck,but any movement in your decoy spread to make it more realistic will help. Last but not least is if you can get a dog, get one.I try not to go hunting without my lab,hes probably with 98% of the time.A dog will find birds in 4-6'catails while you might walk right by them.Good luck and have fun, I cant wait til next season.I forgot but glassing water and fields may help increase your numbers of ducks and geese during the season.

[This message has been edited by Wigeon (edited 03-26-2003).]

[Seabass77]

Thanks for the help. I noticed that the flambaeu's weren't the cheapest, but not the most expensive either. I'm assuming that you are recommending these decoys because they are a good value. How about the G&H's? I noticed they were more money, is it worth it?

Is it smart to mix magnums with standard sizes? What about mixing pintails in with mallards? Or other puddle ducks?

I have a dog, and have taken him pheasant hunting, but I'm not quite sure how he would do in a duck blind.

As far as boats goes, I have heard mixed things about canoes. Some say they are great, others say they are not stable enough. I'm not really thinking of shooting out of it, just need an affordable way to get ducks.

Thanks again for the help.

[Wigeon]

I am personally a fan of the boat,I would hate to tip a canoe in the cold water. I've gotten real wet a few times when I started and its not fun.I do have 6 magnums that a through out, but it seems everyone has there own way to put out a decoy spread my way might not look right to you and your spread might not look right for me.I hunt the Collegeville,Mn area so I through out a few Woodduck decoys in my spread too.

[MNice]

I hunt out of a canoe a lot. I bought some stabilizers form spring creek. Do a search for "spring creek canoe" and they'll be there. They sure take the worry about dumping over in cold water. I just take some camo to cover the canoe and stabilizers when I get positioned.

[Seabass77]

What other puddle ducks would you recommend to sit next to my mallards? What is the most common in minnesota? Pintails? Woodies? Teal?

[Guest]

IF you are looking to get a few different decoys to throw in with the mallards I would go with something that stands out like magnum wood duck decoys, or you could even throw in a few diver decoys. I now have a few coot decoys in my spread that serve as confidence decoys. I'm not sure if they work or not, but they don't hurt.

[loc9fisher]

teal are a good addition in minnesota, pintails not so much if your looking to save some money. but if you feel you must by some, the additional white on the pintail makes them very visible from a long distance. think about this, how can i get my decoys seen from far away? almost anything white in your spread will do that. even though you couldn't shoot canvasback's in minn. this year, a few of them in your decoys adds alot of white and visibility.

personally, i add 2 snow geese to my spread, not to attract snows, but because their big white and can be seen from far away. plus i have seen them mixed in with canadas before and any extra realism can help in my opinion.

duck calls, i agree with wigeon. duck commander calls are inexpensive and sound good. but practice is the key, go buy a cheap duck call with a tape or cd you can listen to in the car and it makes the commute a little more interesting. and your by yourself so you don't bug anyone.

[myzee13]

Seabass, go with the Flambeau's--they hold their paint much better from year to year.I like to mix in teal and woodies towards the closest edge of my mallards,and later in the season, a few widgeon, gadwall, and some divers. But you have to consider a budget. My first decoy spread was purchased at a rummage sale for $.50/decoy, so I got by pretty cheap! But some of those decoys are still being used---flambeau's and Herter's. Put as much color out there as you can without miss-matching species. Puddlers hang with puddlers, divers hang with divers most often.Add a few geese into the spread too, they're very abundant these days.

[Guest]

Seabass

Its not a bad Idea to mix flambeau and G&H decoys as well as a couple of herters too. Not all ducks look alike. I mix the brands up. If I had to pick a light stable boat you can't beat a 12-14ft jon boat. You may end up shooting from the boat if your chasin cripples. Dont skimp on the Waders get yourself a good pair of neoprenes.

Another quack addict.

Ukes

[black max]

I have found that it is good to mix up your decoy brands. Don't just buy 4 doz. of ther same kind of decoy, you'll do better with a doz. or so of a few diff. brands of mallerds. Also throwing in a few geese, pintails, divers, teal etc will also give your spread some more diversity. Also don't be afraid of putting out a confidence booster like a crane if you can afford it.

[Seabass77]

What do you guys like for ammo?

[Seabass77]

I also have another question, for small ponds or sloughs, a guy I work with suggested just getting an otter sled and pulling that through the water as I wade. I kind of made sense to me, most of these small ponds won’t have launches anyway.

What are your thoughts? Do I really need a boat?

[loc9fisher]

for ammo i use federal 2 shot steel, 3.5". i've got some friends that work there so i can get it for pretty cheap. its what im used to and its powerful enough to bring down geese if you hit em right.
as for the ponds, most of the ponds in minnesota aren't very deep. maybe 2 to 3 feet if their small, but you also sink up to your knees in muck. so the waters 2 feet deep plus 2 feet of muck that makes it hard to walk around in, that equals a little to close to the top of my waders for my liking.
you can get by without a boat, i did for a number of years. but it makes you that much more mobil. plus, if you set up your decoys with the wind at your back, shoot a duck in your deeks, if the winds hard enough your dead duck swim away pretty fast. plus i don't think anybody kills a bird every time in one shot and those cripples swim mighty fast. alot easier to paddle straight at them than run around the pond trying to get a good kill shot.
just my opinions, hope they help. and hey!!

its almost duck season!

[Guest]

seabass when you do go hunting.. get
a lab pup train him young.. reason is
lastyear i went up to mudgoose dam
in casscounty off of 18.. dnr drove by
a guy was hunting off the dam
the dnr saw he had a boat and a dog
to retrieve the duck and left

[catchin some]

Seabass77, The most Priceless piece of Equipment you can buy, especially if you plan to hunt by yourself is a Flotation vest. Get the kind with mesh in the shoulder areas. You can wear it while you shoot no problem.Don't take it off till your at the dock. Especially if you get chest waders. Chest waders are nice for range but anchors if you would fall over. Put the jacket on your birthday list and I'm sure the Wife and Kids would be happy to contribute to your hunting supplies.

Shoot straight and be safe!

[catchin some]

one more thing, get a small boat, I found mine when I was fishing. When you see cabins with a nice boat on the lift and one or two others on shore or beside the shed stop and talk to the owner if he wants to get rid of one. I picked up mine for $150 and piggybacked it home on my fishing boat. I'm on year 4, not bat for 150bucks

[Seabass77]

Good tips everyone, keep em coming.

[deadeye]

I usually use the remington 2 3/4in magnum 2 shot for ducks and then I go to the 3 1/2in for geese since they take a beating without coming down. I have also experemented with the tungsten stuff and I think that the tungsten-iron mixed with steel really works good if you can find it cheap. ><>
deadeye

[Blaze]

SeaBass,

I'm only a couple years ahead of you on the duck hunting deal, but I'll offer my experience from the last couple years for ya:

Decoys - we break it out into early season spreads and late season spreads. Early season we throw out a mix like 4 woodies, 4 teal, a few geese and a dozen mallards. Add a couple shakers to make some waves - for $10 they add a lot of life to your spread. Late season we pull the woodies and teal cuz they've usually moved out already and replace them with divers along with our mallard spread.

The robo-ducks, in my opinion, are incredible if you have an extra $100 laying around. We sat across the bay from a couple guys who had one set up with probably a half dozen other decoys (that was all they had) and every time the ducks would come sailing into our decoys, they'd suddenly turn and drop right on top of that spinner - it was amazing (and frustrating for us).

Get educated on how to make a spread look realistic (especially as it relates to wind direction) and it will make a big difference - I've seen so many guys drop 40 mixed decoys in a clump like they're all tied together at the keel and can't figure out why the ducks keep sailing a mile overhead.

Most important, though, is a good, natural call that you practice with and feel confident with. I've almost blown out my own eardrums in the truck blowing my call in August, September, and October - anyone else do that too? We've turned a number of ducks off of other guys decoys with good calling - practice pays off - especially if you can hit the dang things!

I also picked up a 17' canoe early last fall from a friend of mine and fixed it up a bit and camo'd the paint job. Easy to transport, easy to conceal in the cattails, but scares the dump outta me when we're paddling out in 35 degree water. It's really tippy - I'm gonna look into either building some sort of stabilizer or getting a jon boat. If I had to start from scratch again, I go straight for a jon boat.

Hope this helps. Blow hard and shoot straight.

Blaze
* You guys ever get funny looks in traffic when the soccer-mom in her Mercedes looks over at you blowing your call? HAH!

[Seabass77]

I've been practicing my duck calling quite a bit. I picked up the buck gardner CD and an HS call..I have been having some problems with the call though...it stops blowing now and then...I think it would be a major problem in the duck blind...but yes, I do get some strange looks from time to time.

I was crappie fishing on tonka last week, so lots of ducks around so I went back to my car, sat down, and started calling...I got a pair of mallard to come down and check things out...pretty cool!!

[Seabass77]

I found out the problem with my call, saliva build up...I called ammocraft and they were very helpful.

[deadeye]

Sorry I didn't get to finish my post earlier. I have to say if you are starting out with duck hunting I would go out and get a dozen mallard decoys, and a couple four packs of woodies, teals and pintails. Usually i just set them up so that there is a spot for the birds to land in between the decoys, kind of a lopsided U pattern with a few extra on the upwind side. As for the boat I guess if you can get to the water and it is a hard enough bottom to walk on I would do that. Anyway, I have hunted in both a canoe and a jonboat. I guess it is personal preference, if you like the space and comfort of the jonboat go for that, but if you want to have something easy to handle and get into hard to reach places go for the canoe. One other thing, we had some interesting experiences this past year with calling. The first two weekends we called them right in, but after that we couldn't get them to come in when we called. We ended up not calling at all and ended up doing much better that way.-just something to think about. Anyway it sounds like you have gotten some good advice on here so take it all into consideration! GOOD LUCK!!! ><>
deadeye