What? What did you say Alvei? Just ringing now is all I hear. Twenty two years of jet engines and guns which is worst
What? What did you say Alvei? Just ringing now is all I hear. Twenty two years of jet engines and guns which is worst
Its much of the preparation indeed!
* get a copy of the Mississippi game laws.
* get a copy of the federal laws for ducks in your area.
* get a book on identifying ducks and what they look like when they are flying in half light and very fast.
* Get a 12 ga shotgun. Make sure it has a plug in it making it legal for hunting waterfowl.
* get a dozen or three decoys of the kind of ducks you are going to hunt.
* Read a book on decoy sets.
* get a number of boxes of steel shot shotgun shells (preferably the fastest velocity #6 or #4 shot you can find).
* get a boat or some neoprene waders for retrieving ducks (by their nature they fall in the water, cold water)
* read some more about duck hunting.
* find a place where you can legally hunt ducks.
* buy a State hunting license with State Duck Stamp and buy a Federal Duck Stamp. Sign it.
* Wait for duck season.
Typical duck hunt.
Wake up in time to be at the duck blind one hour before shooting time. This is usually very early and some number of hours before daylight. If possible you will have set your decoy spread the afternoon before the hunt. If not start wading around putting out decoys. Put all your gear (shotgun, calls, etc) in the blind and take out your head lamp and 22 pistol with rat shot and clear the blind of cottonmouths before sitting down. Uncase, load your shotgun, get situated and wait quietly. You will have checked the weather to know what time sunrise is and what time 30 min before that is. Normally, knowing what time it is is not important because the other 12,000 hunters within earshot know what time to start shooting and they usually do, all at once. The first thing you will notice is how hard it is to see anything much less a duck flying at 50 mph by your head. But if you wait a flight of teal may fall into your decoys, or a pintail might hoover for a second and give you a shot or some mallards will come in like A10s on a tank kill, or a canvasback or a redhead or some bluebills might streak in. You'll have to be able to ID them all because Federal Game Wardens and Game Wardens in general take a pretty dim view of "I didn't know.....". The penalties for too many or the wrong kind of duck will just make the whole thing a bad dream. The prep for duck hunting is measured in days. The duck hunt is measured in minutes.
After all the flights are gone and the sun is up, you will see a lone duck flying high overhead. Don't do it. That's "Old Spoony" and he counts as a duck for the day. I've heard they are not bad if you remove all the feathers and skin and fat and the meat and the bones and eat a hamburger....
It was suggested to you to get a guided hunt to start with. By the time you have prepped as I outlined above, a guide fee and tip will look like a bargain. If indeed you learn that you like to hunt ducks, then you can spend even MORE money than you ever thought possible to hunt ducks. The best thing about a guide for the beginner is that he will tell you not to shoot if you're about to bust the wrong feathers. That will save you more money than anything else.
Now, about that relaxing part.... You want to relax and hunt? Hunt squirrels. Duck hunting is about as close to WORK as you can get and you haven't even started plucking ducks yet. It's relaxing when it's over, and it's a lot of fun for a bout 30 minutes before sunrise. The rest is work.
I need to check my decoys before September.....
Alan