Who's ready for the duck opener?!

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I AM! This is my first time hunting anything, but I've slowly collected some gear to get started with, and will refine as I go along and learn what works and what doesn't...

If any other NESer wants to tag along with me, please feel free to PM me! I'll be hunting out of a kayak and have a few spots in mind, but wouldn't mind some company.
 
I am, Its a blast... Litteraly. I have just as much fun if I miss a bunch or even all of em. Theres nothing like standing in 33 degree water watching the sun come up and hearing the birds come in before you can even see them. Also fun busting each other's balls when someone misses a nice close bird. Sitting in a treestand just you and your thoughts is nice but waterfoul hunting is awesome. My personal favorite.
 
I am and am not was hoping to pick.up a few new items buy opening day....not gonna happen gotta get the new baby setter all.set for my son... gotta get the rifles sighted in for yote... Gotta patch the waders..... anyone wanna help lol.... But I am psyched...
 
I AM! This is my first time hunting anything, but I've slowly collected some gear to get started with, and will refine as I go along and learn what works and what doesn't...

If any other NESer wants to tag along with me, please feel free to PM me! I'll be hunting out of a kayak and have a few spots in mind, but wouldn't mind some company.

You can't actually hunt from the kayak can you? I remember rowing out to the blinds when i used to duck hunt but I thought shooting from the boat was verboten. Been a while, I could be mis-remembering...
 
You can't actually hunt from the kayak can you? I remember rowing out to the blinds when i used to duck hunt but I thought shooting from the boat was verboten. Been a while, I could be mis-remembering...

You know, I haven't looked into it as I was planning on just paddling out to some "dry" land...but they do make blind boats with swing open doors, so I suppose you can some places...but haven't looked into MA law.
 
You know, I haven't looked into it as I was planning on just paddling out to some "dry" land...but they do make blind boats with swing open doors, so I suppose you can some places...but haven't looked into MA law.

You can hunt from a kayak as long as you are the only engine.
 
No motor or sail you are good jumping woodies on rivers from a canoe a favorite pastime of mine
 
I've got a canoe as well, but would need a hand loading it, thing is just too big for me to odo by myself...I did some last minute scouting in Norton yesterday and saw a metric F*CK ton of ducks.
 
Good luck everyone! I won't be be getting out today, as I'm stuck at work until 2pm, but I've got the next three days off!! Quack quack boom!!!
 
If duck opened today guys across the street are getting some chances.....10 shots so far....unless they cant hit that pesky raccoon!
 
Not a hunter, but what is open now? 4 shots rang out this morning about 50 yds in the woods from me entering work.
 
Early duck is open as of yesterday in the Berkshire zone, and as of today in the central zone. Opens tomorrow in the coastal zone and I'm taking the day off to kick off the season.
 
I got to say Duck Dynasty has really brought out a "new" group of hunters. The area I hit in MA there used to be only a handful of us on opening day. Today was guys all over the place. Kind of like it was 15-20 years ago. Sad part is half of them are sky busting. The other half doesn't know what they are shooting at! Saw one guy take five shots (yeah that's right 5) in the direction of the TRUCKS!!!! Which where only 15 feet off a major road with a house right behind that!! Reminded me of the first "organized" Deer hunt at the Quabin!! Some guys don't realize you need to plug the tube magazine to only accept two shells.

Can't wait for the first Saturday when every one gets out!! This is gonna be great!! Haven't been peppered in a few years and its always a fun time.

I really love it when you take the time to slip in quiet set out all you decoys and just sit back and relax. Then about an hour before legal hours you can hear them coming from every where. Truck doors slamming, talking real loud, banging of the paddles, flash lights scanning all over the place. Yet they don't even notice you standing in the water waving your flash light at them because they are setting up 40 feet away FACING YOU!!!
AH Good times!
 
Nothing, and I repeat nothing is worse than skybusters.

I've seen many but never a dude banging out 5 at a time, now that is impressive.
 
I really love it when you take the time to slip in quiet set out all you decoys and just sit back and relax. Then about an hour before legal hours you can hear them coming from every where. Truck doors slamming, talking real loud, banging of the paddles, flash lights scanning all over the place. Yet they don't even notice you standing in the water waving your flash light at them because they are setting up 40 feet away FACING YOU!!!
AH Good times![/QUOTE]

Or when it is 10 minutes before shooting time and they paddle up to one of your goose dekes thinking they are f***ing stealth master and raise their gun. And then s*** themselves when you ask them what the f*** they are doing.






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Ok, I wasn't going to chime in on my opening day experience but how can I resist? First off, I spent an afternoon building a blind (pallets, posts, dog ramp, blind material...) about a week before the opener. Nice spot over a marsh on an Island. The opener comes, I paddle out about 1.5hrs before legal shooting time with my hunting partner (wife) and my yellow lab (first hunt for her after months of training). I get all the deks set up, just sitting in the blind waiting for legal time...and it happens. I see a headlamp coming through the woods, marching out to a pennisula 50 yards in front of my blind. I have a 1,000,000 candle power spot light just for this reason. I light him up about 12 times letting him know I'm there, I light up his dog as well. Legal shooting comes and birds are flying, I see no decoys deployed by this guy and I hear no calling, so he must have moved on to another spot. Then I get 2 geese flying over, I'm calling them and working them, they make 3 passes, each time getting lower. The final pass, they are locked up, below tree level coming in and BANG...this guy pops up and shoots one! My wife says "what the f**k, are you kidding me" and I had to agree! The guy shows up to the edge of the water in his blue-jeans and his dog that wont go in the water after it! I couldn't help it, I was so pissed, I had a couple exchanges with they guy about seeing my set up, the spot light, you don't set up on top of another hunter like that, no calls around his neck, no decoys deployed, and for cryin' out loud....get some friggin' waders and train your dog!!! Every season I run into some a-hole who does this! After he shot his goose and his dog "nudged" it back to shore, he left. My wife and I proceeded to down a couple geese later and drake woody, which our lab made 3 great retrieves on (her first!). Mallards were not decoying that morning, they were acting like late season birds for whatever reason, there were other people out there and one guy just paddling around trying to jump shoot everything. It reminded me why I usually skip "opening day". For all the new duck hunters out there, 1. a spot light on you means move on, 2. don't set up within shooting distance of another hunter, you'll just be calling at the same birds, and 3. no sky-busting (shooting at birds you'll never hit and most likely cripple and educate). Ok, my rant is over.
 
Ok, I wasn't going to chime in on my opening day experience but how can I resist? First off, I spent an afternoon building a blind (pallets, posts, dog ramp, blind material...) about a week before the opener. Nice spot over a marsh on an Island. The opener comes, I paddle out about 1.5hrs before legal shooting time with my hunting partner (wife) and my yellow lab (first hunt for her after months of training). I get all the deks set up, just sitting in the blind waiting for legal time...and it happens. I see a headlamp coming through the woods, marching out to a pennisula 50 yards in front of my blind. I have a 1,000,000 candle power spot light just for this reason. I light him up about 12 times letting him know I'm there, I light up his dog as well. Legal shooting comes and birds are flying, I see no decoys deployed by this guy and I hear no calling, so he must have moved on to another spot. Then I get 2 geese flying over, I'm calling them and working them, they make 3 passes, each time getting lower. The final pass, they are locked up, below tree level coming in and BANG...this guy pops up and shoots one! My wife says "what the f**k, are you kidding me" and I had to agree! The guy shows up to the edge of the water in his blue-jeans and his dog that wont go in the water after it! I couldn't help it, I was so pissed, I had a couple exchanges with they guy about seeing my set up, the spot light, you don't set up on top of another hunter like that, no calls around his neck, no decoys deployed, and for cryin' out loud....get some friggin' waders and train your dog!!! Every season I run into some a-hole who does this! After he shot his goose and his dog "nudged" it back to shore, he left. My wife and I proceeded to down a couple geese later and drake woody, which our lab made 3 great retrieves on (her first!). Mallards were not decoying that morning, they were acting like late season birds for whatever reason, there were other people out there and one guy just paddling around trying to jump shoot everything. It reminded me why I usually skip "opening day". For all the new duck hunters out there, 1. a spot light on you means move on, 2. don't set up within shooting distance of another hunter, you'll just be calling at the same birds, and 3. no sky-busting (shooting at birds you'll never hit and most likely cripple and educate). Ok, my rant is over.

I wonder if it was mister blue jeans who was duck calling during goose season?
 
I wonder if it was mister blue jeans who was duck calling during goose season?
Not sure Mike, but this guy was a completely out of line and discourteous as a hunter no matter what the game. Lots of birds flying there, but not a single duck would decoy, they were very skiddish.
 
Not sure Mike, but this guy was a completely out of line and discourteous as a hunter no matter what the game. Lots of birds flying there, but not a single duck would decoy, they were very skiddish.

Did you have teal and woody deeks? I never had any luck calling them even with all the whistles etc. They just don't act like regular ducks.
 
Did you have teal and woody deeks? I never had any luck calling them even with all the whistles etc. They just don't act like regular ducks.

No, I hit the woody doing mach 2 over the deks, I couldnt get a Mallard to decoy, which was strange for the early part of the season.
 
That place was a lot of fun to hunt. I thought I was the only one that blew off school to walk the tracks in.
Didn't Brica go no dish charge a few years back? I know the Tewksbury side is too close to houses.
 
I really love it when you take the time to slip in quiet set out all you decoys and just sit back and relax. Then about an hour before legal hours you can hear them coming from every where. Truck doors slamming, talking real loud, banging of the paddles, flash lights scanning all over the place. Yet they don't even notice you standing in the water waving your flash light at them because they are setting up 40 feet away FACING YOU!!!
AH Good times!

I generally hunt with two of my best friends (if I'm not going solo) and we try to hit places where no one else would bother to go. This means it takes longer to get to the spot, and we may get a little more beat up and torn by prickers in the process, but it's worth it if it means we have the area to ourselves. So far I, or we, haven't really had a problem with other hunters nudging in on our sets.
 
I generally hunt with two of my best friends (if I'm not going solo) and we try to hit places where no one else would bother to go. This means it takes longer to get to the spot, and we may get a little more beat up and torn by prickers in the process, but it's worth it if it means we have the area to ourselves. So far I, or we, haven't really had a problem with other hunters nudging in on our sets.
When I was younger I would slide into areas like that. But don't worry in time you will be saying screw it I'll go where the travel is a little easier.
We used to do that kind of work for a three bird limit!!!
The area I was in is public so you have that going for ya. For the most part the "regulars" know where the other guys are going to set and you can work off each other.
 
When I was younger I would slide into areas like that. But don't worry in time you will be saying screw it I'll go where the travel is a little easier.

I'm 34 but I'm actually in better shape now than I was 10 years ago. An older hunter not long ago said to me: "Yeah you're all piss and vinegar, out there acting like you're in an obstacle course. Enjoy it now because your bones will be aching sooner than you think. The birds and the deer aren't going to slow down for you once you're over the hill." I got a kick out of that.
 
so how's everyone's season so far? I've gotten out a couple times, shot a few birds. Learned a WHOLE lot. Anyone got any time off the week of thanksgiving? I took the first 3 days of the week off to go with the last two holiday days from my company...plan to hunt a good amount, wouldn't mind company(my spot) or to try a new spot.

here's my first wood duck, ever:

duck1.JPG
 
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