2011 Duck Hunting

I have been duck hunting in the past, but never was really serious about the sport. I would go maybe 8 times a year, but this year I wanted to do a lot more duck hunting. I bought 2 1/2 dozen decoys and Texas-rigged them. Since I knew I would most likely do most of my duck hunting alone and on foot, I decided to get unweighted keels. Turned out to be a good idea because on a few hunts I walked miles with my decoys, hunting bag, and gun on my shoulder.

The decoys I decided to buy were Acadmey’s Game Winner brand. While they chip and the paint isn’t the most realistic, they do their jobs. I got 12 pintail, 12 green wing teal and 6 redheads, along with weights and crimps for about $150. A lot of the hunting I did was in mangroves or blinds on an open flat.

On the whole, we had a pretty warm winter, but did have a few really cold days. This year yielded tons of redheads and scaup, as well as a few pintail, bufflehead, teal and even a merganser. My father-in-law came down from Austin for a couple weeks and we went hunting quite a bit together, Adam would join when he could. Continue reading…