This weekend, myself and 4 hunting buddies went out to Ft. Cobb lake in SW Oklahoma. We hunted last night and camped out. I shot a green wing teal about 30 seconds before the stop shooting time. Today, it started out slow. All that was coming in were singles. We did shoot a couple of beautiful mallards. One was huge! His feathers were very pretty with three of the curly feathers on his tail. Anyways, we didn't have any luck after that. A mallard hen came in all by herself and was right over the top of the blind. We were all blasting away and it even did a couple of flips in the air before gliding off and crashing down in the woods behind us. I looked for 45 minutes and couldn't find it. As soon as I got back to the blind, another big mallard came in. We started blasting and feathers were flying. It too went back into the woods and again I looked forever and couldn't find it! A bit later, two teals came in and we shot them both down in the water. They both started swimming away and were obviously injured to the point that they couldn't fly. But we fired numerous finishing rounds at them and they just kept swimming across the huge pond we were hunting on. By the time I made it over there in my waders, they were hiding somewhere. I looked for an hour and never saw a trace of either one. I'm wondering where they went and what their plans for the future were. I've hunted ducks for almost 4 years and never lost a duck I shot. Today I lost four. How often does this happen to you guys? I went through two and a half boxes of ammo, shooting like crazy at singles. My buddies used about the same amount. We only have three ducks to show for about $150 in ammo. A couple weekends ago, we brought home 7 ducks and I used less than 20 rounds. Pretty crazy weekend.
Buddy I know the feeling. Some days just turn out that way and it seems like there is no shot coming out of my barrel! The only help I can give is that smaller shot say 4 or smaller seems to work better for the final water shot and go for the head shot instead of the body. A. K. A. practice for turkey season
I would say try to get your birds in closerand go and do some skeet shooting. The reason i say this is from large amount of shells yall shot and the amount of birds you ended up with.
I got one bit of advice. Get a DOG. I had not use a dog the first few years i staated hunting and lost several birds. We have lost one bird all season and he has made over 100 retreives.
Location: NW Ohio , 5 min from Ottawa National / Magee Marsh
Posts: 2,049
RE: The ducks are getting away after being shot!
A few things to try .
Patteren your gun with the shells you are shooting .
The patteren may be full of hole or thin areas , a change of choke or shells should fix that .
What shot size are you using ?
#4 steel will work early in the season , but I would sujest # 3 as a min and 2's or 1's might do lots better .
How fast is the load ?
I shoot 1500 fps and faster loads .
I have found that a lighter payload and faster velosity kill better.
I shoot for most of my duck hunting a 2 3/4" 1 oz of #3 at 1650 fps reload .
I will switch to a 3" 1 1/8 oz of #2 at 1650 fps soon .
Get out to the skeet and sporting clay's cources and practice as much as possible
Johnch
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Another thing is if the water is even a foot deep, ducks will dive and hang on to something underwater with their bills and a lot of times drown themselves doing it.
AMEN to that! You don't have to leave the blind to get the birds, and you rarely lose a cripple with a good retriever.
This hen woody was a cripple that dived half-a-dozen times before my pup finally figured out he had to dive under to grab her:
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The ducks are getting away after being shot!
