Duck season 2013-14 is officially over. All wintered ducks that were smart or lucky enough to evade decoys and flock shots are now safe to roam about before migrating north again. For me, it was a huge stepping stone in learning the high art of waterfowling.
For a few years i've had an interest in hunting of all kinds. Spending days upon days in the marshes made the decision easy to give wing shooting a chance. At first, i'll have to admit to being a little bit intimidated. I was under the impression that you had to have a masters degree in waterfowl to step anywhere near a shotgun and a dozen decoys. Gladly that's not the case, although it may not hurt.
You see, I didn't grow up hunting like many people have. I'm not lucky enough to have fathers and uncles with high dollar leases and mudboats to back up 30+ years of experience. My rookie season hunting started out like any other wild hair that may pop out of my head. A nagging interest followed by hours of internet research and development. Getting into duck hunting is not an easy endeavor. Despite the popularity of
Duck Dynasty, I highly doubt you will see a
significant number of trendy duck hunters flocking to the local duck ponds.
Duck hunting is hard. It is the only reason a man would get out of bed at 3:30am to wade through sheets of ice in the swamp to catch the morning flights of wood ducks. There were days that my fingers and toes went completely numb. Hour after hour of looking around the sky hoping to see
anything flying. I hunted a lot this season. Exactly what I planned to do. I harvested a few birds and missed a bunch more. A lot of blue and green-winged teal, exactly one wood duck and greenhead drake, some poonies, few scaup, and some mexican squealing hybrid all made it to the table.
Stay tuned for some gear reviews and advice from a complete novice.
