Alabama Opener in Mobile

Jeff,

I have had the same experience with buffies: one day you cant keep them out of the decoys, couple of days later they completely ignore you.
Doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to them sometimes!

Our spread this weekend was, facing down-wind, 2.5 dzn gadwall decoys off the stern & to the left, 2.5 cans, redheads and bluebills in a short hook in the middle and 9 buffies off the bow to the right. Buffies all landed in the buffie decoys, giving my boy the most shots. This weekend, the buffies will go in the middle, so I can get a shot at the few mature drakes in the flocks!
 
Jim,
Sure glad y'all liked the scenery & food down in Gulf Shores. Tin Top is quite a drive for us, but we have some great seafood places within a mile of the office!
 
Jeff,

I have had the same experience with buffies: one day you cant keep them out of the decoys, couple of days later they completely ignore you.
Doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to them sometimes!

Our spread this weekend was, facing down-wind, 2.5 dzn gadwall decoys off the stern & to the left, 2.5 cans, redheads and bluebills in a short hook in the middle and 9 buffies off the bow to the right. Buffies all landed in the buffie decoys, giving my boy the most shots. This weekend, the buffies will go in the middle, so I can get a shot at the few mature drakes in the flocks!

5 dozen plus the buffies???? Holy cripes! I think of a dozen decoys as a big spread. Most of my hunting buddies laugh at me because I fuss about decoy set ups. With the black ducks, we often find just 2-3 decoys effective, and "toss them out and hide the boat, quick" is our general theory of decoy placement.

It's interesting how regional styles differ so much. We have a lot of public water and relatively light hunting pressure, but our duck numbers are low and patterns change a lot day to day. That puts a premium on set-ups that are quick to set up and highly mobile. A day of hunting often finds me setting up in 2 or even 3 places trying to find a pattern that works.
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Printing this diagram for some of my minimalist hunting buddies who think I'm nuts to fuss about decoy placement. LOL.

Again, I find it really interesting how different regional and personal hunting styles can be. I don't think I'd make it as a traditional diver hunter. It's too hard to fit 60 decoys in a canoe!
 
I thoroughly enjoyed the reading of this Alabama story and the photos as well. The diagram put me in mind of that great old book by Ralf Coykendal about decoy placement, a copy of which I am fortunate enough to possess. I only visited the seacoast of Alabama once,in summer, but it sure looked ducky. Ran into a Pacific Northwest native running a gift shop in Orange Beach, go figure. Glad y'all had some real duck hunting weather which can be an iffy thing down there as I remember from my Florida days. Thanks for putting me right there in the hunt with you guys!
 
Jeff while i love putting out untold amounts of decoys (until i pick them up), i have shot 90% of my divers over a single string of buffies, ive also shot a bunch of puddlers over them. The biggest rafts of birds i have seen was around 20 so a dozen feels right. You just have to match the hatch
 
Carl, it is good to see you being so fortunate on your opener. That is fantastic. In fact, while looking at all those divers it made me think that I don't think I have seen that many here in NM for the 17 years that Bev and I have lived here.
I hope you have continued success. That had to be fun.
Al
 
Jeff while i love putting out untold amounts of decoys (until i pick them up), i have shot 90% of my divers over a single string of buffies, ive also shot a bunch of puddlers over them. The biggest rafts of birds i have seen was around 20 so a dozen feels right. You just have to match the hatch

Chris, matching the Hatch down here, where when I see divers on the St. Johns River, would require those massive diver rigs that folk put out. Truly at least a hundred decoys would be what you wanted to start with. But we've got rafts of ducks that sit in the river several hundred strong and learned the hard way that unless you're EXACTLY where they want to be, a little bitty spread usually won't cut it. A shame I don't have the spread or equipment to hunt them.....oh well....
And we do get LOTS of buffleheads here too.
Sounds like a nice opener Carl
Dani
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Actually, on this day, the wind was more the WNW, should have corrected that ....
 
Thanks Al.
Hope the Rio Grande is getting back to normal so you can have some hunts.
 
Scott,
I would love to borrow your molds and replace all my entire diver rig with EPS foamers.
But I haven't found a local source of EPS and shipping is a killer. I will keep carving them out of scrap foam & burlapping for now.

Nice looking dekes, but its one hell of a bachelor party, where are the ladies? :)
 
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