bigcountry

This is my second year seriously duck hunting. I am hunting on the Chesapeake bay in a cove. Very open water since I have to 150 yards away from the houses on the shore. I got a few questions.

1. Is a blind like an avery effective on this open water. I see how its effective in the marsh blending in and all, but wonder if it looks very strange to ducks in open water. I do know it hinds movement.

2. Is ducks affected alot by chit chat on the boat. My friends and I talk alot in the boat. Like when a bird is coming in, does talk like "theres one" loudly, make the birds flair.

3. Does haveing mixed ducks on different sections spook the birds? Like we have have limited number of decoys so we have one raft of buffleheads and one with mallards and one with Teal. We are hunting mainly buffleheads and mallards. Does the teal decoys bother the mallards. I heard buffleheads are not detailed oriented. Is that true?

4. Should you call constantly when the birds are not flying much but you can clearly see them 500 yards off under docks and such. We have been basically calling only when they flair or they are flying by.

5. Since bufflehead decoys are pretty expensive, we was going to buy 30 dollar/doz teal decoys and paint them white and black. Will buffleheads mind?

Thanks for the help. We went out this morning and the birds are clearly flairing from us. We set up pretty poorly this morning with the decoy arrangements and really didnt have a good landing zone for them. But will give it another try on Thurs.

psandhu

1. probably not effective.
2. yes, they affected.
3. no, it won't spook them.
4. no, you are calling too much.
5. they won't mind, but you could use mallard dekes instead.

bigcountry

Thanks, Went out yesterday. Couldn't buy a bird. Wind was 15-20mph. Made it hard to put out decoys in our pattern we wanted. I always heard that mallards/ducks pitch in into the wind. Is this true? Most of the mallards we saw flying was flying with the wind. Does this mean before they pitch they generally will come back around? I am strugglign to figure out there patterns.

psandhu

the ducks don't really pitch into the wind, but they are going into the wind when they land. you want the wind at your back, from the sides is acceptable, wind in your face is something you do not want.