Texas coastal duck hunting report

[fishuhalik]

Got out again today. Went out with a local buddy, focusing on divers this time. Mainly redheads. Took his buddy's boat & both of our decoy piles. I just got 5 dozen ghg mag reds, mag cans, & life-size scaup & pins. He showed up with his 20 doz & said let's go! Left my place at 0130 after getting 2.5 hours sleep. Made the 2 hour drive to Corpus & met him at his buddy's boat slip. Load up the dekes & we're off.

One of the amazing things about the Laguna Madre is the amount of shallow, huntable water & how they hunt it. I'm used to finding a point for pass shooting or a bay for decoying birds (generally) but everything's bigger in Texas! Guys build these gorgeous public box blinds anywhere from right on the shoreline to a mile out. & it's all ankle-waist deep the entire way. Here's a satellite pic of the area. All those little black dots are box blinds.

Thankfully all the dekes were Texas rigged, so throwing out all 300 dekes only took about 45 minutes. We set em in a modified V pattern & the birds loved it. We had a decent amount skirt the edge but the majority of em came right in, maybe circling once before dropping in. Some were in singles & small flocks, some were in flocks numbering in the hundreds. I dropped the first bird 5 mins after legal light, a hen red I mistook for a drake. Next flock my bud knocked a hen redhead. I picked a nice drake & I missed shot #1 & sailed him on #2. Buds pup tried going after it but couldn't catch it before it dove & disappeared. Next flock came in while pup was still walking around in the dekes. They didn't care & dropped right in. This time I clubbed a nice drake red, but my bud missed all 3 shots. Next bird was a drake scaup that was promptly dispatched. Buddy missed a single, then a flock of about 100 dropped in. For some reason he picked a hen & dumped it, finishing our redhead limit. We sat for a couple more hours, watching flocks of beautiful reds land in the dekes then sending Doe out after em. She loved it! At least 1/2 of the time she'd chase em up, they fly 50 yards then circle around again & land 20 feet from her & she'd chase em up again. It was quite the show!! Here's our take for the day, with Doe standing guard over em. She was a great dog, real soft mouth & able to take directional signals from my buddy.

There is one definite drawback to hunting the ocean. Firearms do not fare well. I set my Beretta on the bench seat while we set out the dekes & the dog knocked it over, dropping it to the bottom of the shin-deep sea. After letting it soak for 45 mins while we set the dekes I figured out what happened. Field stripped it, drained it & she ran like a champ. By the time I got back though, I had this.

Thankfully, after a complete & total tear down & soaking in Zep 45, it all came off. I'm still gonna soak it in a thick coat of Zep overnight to be sure.

If any of you guys have the winter blues & feel like coming down, just say the word. It isn't exactly a secret here so I have no problem showing guys some spots. It was 78, partly sunny & no wind but it doesn't matter, birds are everywhere. Come on down!!

One question for you guys though. Is there anything I can cost my gun in to prevent this from happening again? I know about ceracoating but was wondering if there's something that can be put on the trigger assembly too

[Fowlmouth]

That bluebill and redhead have amazing color. My wife's family lives in Texas, hoping one of these times to make it to the coast for a hunt while we are down visiting.

[strait-meat]

I have your spots marked and hunting it in 2 weeks. Let me know what kind of a truck you are driving and we will meet up in the AM.

Actually I usually hunt LA this time of year. I dont think I have the time to do it this year when I go down but it is fun to hunt in different places and states.

One thing about hunting further south that MN is the birds are smarter and the shots are farther. Have fun and keep posting pictures! Fun to see.

That's one nice thing about hunting in the south--birds have full plumage.

Make sure to charge battery on phone too, looks like it is getting low. Also--dam salt!

[Fowlmouth]

Is there a lot of other hunters down there so its like here in minnesota where you have to be at the boat landing at 3am to get a good spot or is there plenty of room to roam down there?

[fishuhalik]

Fowlmouth, around Corpus it gets a little crowded, but there is an unlimited number of spots to hunt. Most residents don't go further than 5-10 miles from the marinas in town & the Laguna Madre is around 300 miles long with thousands & thousands of points, islands, and bays ranging in size from little 5 acre cuts to the size of some of MN's bigger lakes like Lavaca, Copano, Corpus Christi & Baffin Bays, to name a few. It sounds daunting but there are literally birds everywhere. If I only have a morning to hunt I'll stay around town & kill plenty of birds. If I'm feeling frisky I'll head down the beach road, drive for an hour & find a good spot on my Navionics maps to hunt. A few general rules come into play. From what I've read/heard/seen, teal prefer fresh water inlets & smaller water, pins prefer more brackish (salt/fresh mix) water & generally stick closer to shorelines & divers prefer the big saltwater bays.

[fishuhalik]

Here's an example. This is the area I've been hunting, just south of Corpus Christi Bay. This stretch of the Laguna Madre in this pic is about 15 miles long. Every island, small point, backwater & cut will have birds working it, not to mention the dozens of blinds built in the open on the sand flats

What I'm trying to figure out, is how to target specific species of divers. Anyone can shoot their limit of redheads out here, but your limit of 2 gets filled pretty quick. I was talking with a couple guides on another forum & they were saying there's certain spots that will really draw scaup, goldies & buffies. I'll get her figured out in a year or two.

[Jack Asche]

I see that you are near Huston and it made me wonder why drive all the way to Corpus Cristi. No birds straight south of you?

Looks like fun, that's for sure!

Are the blinds out on the flats "first come first served" ??

[fishuhalik]

I live near Houston but work south of San Antonio. The blinds technically are public, but if the guy that built comes to hunt it (its usually a guide) it's common courtesy to either bow out or ask if they want to hunt with you. Now, if a guide came up to the blind 5 minutes before LST & asked us to move ourselves & the 300 dekes we were using, I'd probably tell him to kick rocks

[fishuhalik]

Today's stap. We were a little more picky today, putting 3 drakes down. 2 were absolutely gorgeous. Gonna wait for a mid January bird to put on the wall though. T-storms picked up before we could move our spread to chase other birds

[Mr.Seaguar]

How does this compare to your ND trip in your eyes? Cause from here your pictures of beautiful ducks from TX win.

[fishuhalik]

That's a good question. I love NoDak. The prairie, field hunting big malls & honkers, chasing roosters & sniping the occassional coyote while out scouting is tough to beat. This last trip was tough though. We did ok, but we put in a TON of window time in to get those birds. With that said, it's hard to beat this hunting down here. Any place a guy can have 1-3,000+ ducks come within shotgun range every single time out is a pretty special place. Also, it's just so darn easy to hunt down here, especially for reds. The last few times I've went with a buddy. He has his bay boat parked at a slip barely 2 miles from where we've been going. Throw dekes in the boat, take off, set dekes around a comfy blind that's already up & you're shooting birds. Once I figure out where to go so I can consistently get a few other species on the strap, I'll be set. I'm learning new stuff every time out but like I said earlier, there is A LOT of water & new stuff to learn.

[fishuhalik]

Tried a new spot today. Tried some skinnier water off the beaten path. I was on my own so I had to use good ol' foot power today. First birds that came by were the 2 hen reds. It was early & I though they were bills, oops. Had quite a few scaup come in as well as the typical reds. No pins. Picked up my dekes to try a new spot to see if I could find a big sprig to fill up my limit but got called in to get equipment ready for tomorrow.

[Fowlmouth]

Thats a great looking bluebill in the last pic with the blackish green head. Wall mounter for sure.

[TylerS]

You're piling them up! I was fortunate enough to hunt the Texas coast two years ago about an hour north of Corpus Christi. Boy, what a hunt to remember. Redheads galore, huge bull sprigs, wigeon and even a bonus pair of mottled ducks. Plus we fished in the afternoons for redfish and speckled trout. It truly doesn't get any better than that!

[B-man715]

Awesome stuff! You make us all a little jelly

[fishuhalik]

Thanks for the compliments guys. It's been a fun fall/winter, that's for sure. I'm leaving for MN for Christmas tomorrow morning. Tried to talk the family into coming here & enjoying some warm weather but I lost that battle. 7 days in MN, then back to work for 2 weeks. Hopefully I get a few days off during my 2-week hitch & can stack a few more. I don't wanna say I'm a duck hunting expert or anything, but I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on ND & MN ducks. It's really fun to hunt an area that's completely new to me & I take a lot of pride in figuring these birds & this area out mostly on my own

[Fowlmouth]

When it comes to duck hunting, in my opinion theres nothing better than diver duck hunting. Them boys over in Arkansas have a good thing going with the mallards and flooded timber. But if I had to choose one place to go hunt it would be somewhere off the coast of Texas for divers. Enjoy my friend.

[SledNeck]

When it comes to duck hunting, in my opinion theres nothing better than diver duck hunting. Them boys over in Arkansas have a good thing going with the mallards and flooded timber. But if I had to choose one place to go hunt it would be somewhere off the coast of Texas for divers. Enjoy my friend.

We shoot a mix of everything in the rice/bean fields in Arkansas. Woods is just mallards and woodies for the most part though.

[Fowlmouth]

You heading south this year sledneck?

[SledNeck]

Every January. We have a new field this year that's supposed to be unbelievable. The cold weather is coming just in time.

[HNTNBUX]

Your hunting sounds awesome. It makes me think that I should try Texas instead of Canada but that can be a great trip as well.

Enjoy the regional differences while you can.

[fishuhalik]

Happy New Years from the frozen south!! It was 35 & misting today when I left the shop. You guys go ahead & scoff, but 35 with a mist & high humidity with a 15mph wind is COLD! Went out with a new buddy today. He had tried a different area last week & saw a few pins, teal & gads along with the typical clouds of reds, so we figured we'd give it a try. Good choice, as it turned out to be one of the best days of hunting I've ever had. We were on a drake-only mission today, so we didn't start shooting til a little later when we could clearly identify birds. We're both colorblind so it's tough. About 40 minutes after the first shot, our limit of pins & reds was full. Sadly, my buddy got 2 reds with one shot & one was a hen, but I still think this is one of my best strings ever. After that, we just bird watched as a raft of reds & pins formed just outside our spread. If I had to conservatively guess, I would say we had around 1,000 pintails & 5,000? reds in shotgun range today. Simply amazing!! No other birds came close enough to offer a shot

[Fowlmouth]

Nice hunt! I'm jealous, that is all

[B-man715]

Too cool

I remember this one time I thought I saw a pintail...... LOL

Please keep posting all of your hunts, it's awesome to see what duck hunting is like outside the Midwest

[fishersofmen]

Awesome colors on those birds! Sounds like a blast down there....