Last year was my second year of duck hunting... and everything me and my buds have learned has come from experience, listening to veteran duck hunters, and making decisions on my own.
This year, I'm working on my spread tactics. SC is mostly woodies, teal, and divers.Occasionaly you'll hear about people getting into some mallards, and once a season you'll hear about a gadwall, widgeon or pintail. However, my first season i still bought a dozen mallards and a puddler pack. I used to throw all of them out, and ducks were shy. They would circle once or twice and then high tail it.Last year, I bought some ringer, woodie and bluewing dekes. This year, the mallards and the puddler pack will all sit in the shed, and I'm only gonna throw out small spreads of divers and teal/woodies when necessery. I'm also gonna get 6 oversized bluebills. I always thought "why get those friggin' massive decoys? They're so big!" Well i figured out that question when we set out all oversized diver dekes. Ducks way out used to pass by without thinking twice, but that morning they beelined for the dekes. Its hard to see smaller dekes at longer distances.
I'll always try to some white in my decoy spread.
I'm not going to mix diving duck dekes with other ducks; from what I've observed, they don't mix with other species too often.
I'm not going to show the same spread twice, unlike last season.
I'm watching the weather EVERY morning... not just most [8D](long story)
If using a spinning wing decoy, make sure it has remote on and off. It looks pretty odd when ducks just flew across the entire bay to your spread and that duck is STILL trying to land.
I'm gonna use more than two shells to pattern my gun this year.
I'm gonna do what works. There have been many times that I'd use a setup that would work excellent one day, and the next morning I would use it again but it would completely fail. Yet i wouldn't change my setup at all. No more of that. If something isn't working, change it.
I'm gonna skip school on cold fronts, and rainy/ overcast days.
I'm gonna get out there more often.
I have plenty more that I'm changing, but lets stop there
