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Late Season Duck Hunting

4/21/2020

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​Chase Galley
 
It is weird to me to think that I am 21 years old, yet I have been duck hunting for over 10 years now. I spend the majority of my Christmas break hunting ducks and a couple days during Thanksgiving. The last two years I have spent a majority of my duck season hunting solo. This gave me a great chance to try some new things, change things up on hunts and experiment overall.
 
Last year I wanted to try some new decoy spreads as I was hunting ducks that have been hunted and shot at for several months at this point. I have always noticed where I hunt in western Wyoming the ducks tend to always want to and end up landing on the outside of my spread and then swim in. This led to shots that were 35-40 yards and I found myself in a constant battle trying my best to recover crippled ducks. In 2018 I changed that tactic and instead of putting decoys out further trying to have a good landing zone close I brought my decoys in and a lot of my decoys inside 20 yards. The change was huge!
 
In 2018 I was only able to hunt six days total as we spend a majority of my Christmas break in New Mexico. When I was able to first test out my new strategy, I was shocked at the number of ducks that were willing to work now and that had committed sooner to the pocket. That first day I was back and hunting I think I had hunted a total of 2 ½ hours before I limited out with 4 mallards 2 green wing teal (which surprised me as they are usually gone by now), and 1 golden eye. I hunted the same spot for the next 4 days and the rest of the season. I would leave the house around 9 in the morning get to my spot around 11 or 12 and I was done hunting and headed home by 2 in the afternoon. The decoy spread changed the game for me that year. I had shot a total of 35 ducks in 5 days of hunting. I myself have never had a run of success in the duck blind like that! One thing I learned in the first two days was since I was hunting the same spot was changing my spread each day and really each hour.
 
The spot I spent hunting in 2018 for a week straight the ducks could see me putting out decoys and picking up ducks. It was wide opened, and you could see up the river a long way and same for looking down river. This spot late in the year tends to get heavy fog and steam throughout the day so when the steam or fog would get thick and I couldn’t see the ducks I would go and just move my decoys around keeping them close but just changing things. The key for me was starting simple then changing as the day progressed.
 
I would always start with a traditional spread with a dozen decoys. Traditional to me is five on the left five on the right then two next to the bank. I would then move one or two to the right side or left side depending on how I felt and repositioning all the decoys to try and make it look natural to how I saw ducks sitting in similar locations. If they would sit in a group close together that’s how I would place my decoys, if they were more scattered that day, I would adjust to that. The key for me was looking and taking mental notes of how ducks would sit on the water in similar locations.
 
What I mean by taking mental notes is quite simple. It took me a while to figure it out but once I did it seemed easy to me. I would always drive up the river to my spot and take inventory of what was around, and I started to see how ducks were sitting in certain locations of the river I was hunting. I would look at how they would sit in a big side channel that was shallow with slow water compared to a rock bar that was in the river. What I took away from this is ducks never sit or feed in same “formation.” I learned fast that the majority of the ducks at a spot are going to be where the best feed is. So, when I got to my hunting location, I would place the majority of my decoys where what I thought the most feed was. Like I said I would start with what I call a traditional spread every time, then move decoys to where I thought the most feed was. It proved to me to be very effective. I think I as well was getting repeat ducks who maybe didn’t give me an opportunity to shoot or just flew by. I think they took note of the decoys and when they saw a change they may have committed. I have zero clue if this is true all I know is changing my spread seemed to help and I found more success with different spread.
 
The 2019-2020 season had a whole new set of challenges with weather and temps and adapting to the ducks! Next Time I will cover how we changed locations and picked spots based off of duck action. Also, how we changed things on the fly and found last day success. If you are new to the waterfowl game hopefully this will help you be more successful sooner! If you have any more questions, go to the contact page and I will get back to you as soon as I can!
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