Calling advice please
I was never a very serious duck hunter growing up, but now my two sons are really into duck hunting and I need some calling advice.
Our setup is on a side river from a bigger river that connects two ponds. Where we setup is lots of swamp grass, shallow water, about 1 foot. We see ducks alot moving between the main ponds and running the main river. When the shooting starts they come down our way.
Early in the season its mostly wood ducks, as it progresses the woodies get fewer and mallards and blacks come in.
I have never had any luck calling/decoying wood ducks, they seem to just come along the river low and fast and we pass shoot them.
Now however there are mostly mallards and blacks and they want to decoy and are susceptible to calling. So... there lies my problem.
We have mallard decoys, 1 dozen, plus 1 "feeder" decoy (looks like a mallard drake with his head under water feeding) and 1 canadian goose. We set the mallard dekes close in to our blind (water is about 35 yards across) and the goose set off from the ducks.
Last week we were out for the end of the first half of our split season, and on most occassions I could get far off mallards to turn and come our way, mostly they woud either then just pass on by, or circle once and move on. Several times they circled, but not right over us, they were circling down stream from us, with the edge of the circle coming almost over us.
How do I handle the callign on this? I have two mallard calls, one is more high pitched than the other, we also have a mallard feed chuckle call that you use by wigglign in your hand. I can blow basic calls including the chuckle on my calls.
Should I continue to call while they are circling, or just shutup once they turn my way?
Do you think they are not coming all the way in due to my calling, something in the setup or seeing one of us move (my boys have trouble not following the ducks with their heads).
Thanks for any help you can give!!
--Bob