began hunting waterfowl at a young age due to his father being a waterfowl biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Today he hunts both public and private waterfowl grounds and is always working on something related to waterfowl throughout the year. He loves to turkey hunt and fish for walleye and crappie in the spring. David is a university professor, holds an NRA Level II coaching certification and works with youth in trap and skeet shooting in the summer with his annual trap-shooting academy.
If you are like me you tend to buy calls, use them, like them, hate them and move on to the next one. Calls take a ton of abuse and often we pay little or no attention to taking care of them both for maintenance and for adjustments. I sat down with a good friend and someone that calls as well as anyone I know, to discuss the call components and how anyone can disassemble, adjust, and rebuild just about any call with a few spare parts.
One does not have to live through a day of waterfowl hunting on snack cakes, candy bars, apples, and jerky. I know cooking in the blind can be a full course meal as seen in some magazines, but here, we are talking about something good to eat, easy to pack in, easy to clean up and typically gets folks to ask for more.
It is said a dry duck hunter is a happy duck hunter. For the many that hunt marshes, ponds, lakes, and rivers the need to enter the water is inevitable. Depending on the depth of the water you may opt for knee boots, waist waders, hip waders, or chest waders.
The innovation of decoys starts with an idea. We all have ideas and often act on those ideas with designs of our own, but in this instance, Lifetime has moved to an outer orbit with their lineup of FlexFloat decoys.
There are so many possibilities and rigging your decoys should provide you years of service with little or no frustration. Time should be spent hunting not untangling decoy lines.
Over the years I have experienced a wild variety of waterfowl clothing. Starting with those old cotton waffled long johns you can buy at the farm and home store. Not sure those ever kept me warm or dry.
Dakota Decoys are a product of the Midwest and Missouri River Valley. Bill Willroth, the owner of Dakota Decoys and an avid hunter and media personality orchestrates their design and development. His show The Grind is a great way to learn and enjoy waterfowl hunting.
I work with youth and competitive sport shooting and often get the opportunity to hunt with them during the waterfowl season. In my state, we have a youth waterfowl opener that is a week ahead of the annual opening day. My good friend Scott offered that he had a young hunter, so we began to prepare for that first hunt.
practice of patterning a shotgun. This article provides some great advice for every shotgun enthusiast that wants to be a good competitive shooter.
You likely have read about every possible scenario for waterfowl and specifically duck decoy spreads. The J-hook or “J” spread, the “U” spread, the “L” spread, and finally the “X” spread. Add to this the “C” spread or total chaos spread and that should about cover the possibilities. I have used them all and what I have learned over the years is if the ducks want in, they will come in, regardless of the wind direction, exposed hunters, poor sets, or movement.