Almost Over...

Craig F

Craig F

Well-known member
With a week left to go here in NJ for our coastal duck season these mild temps we've been experiencing have basically made it easy to start wrapping it up early. I'm not a big diver hunter so I've been picking away best I can at wily late season black ducks with a few mallards and gadwall mixed in. We'll see how the last week shapes up, but I've been blessed to get out a lot and had my fair share of good shoots so it's all good at this point.

I did finally have a free minute to throw together a quick 'teaser' style video with a very small portion of the footage I've amassed this season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlkmX8p7wK0

And a few pics as well.

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Nice video work, as usual Craig!

Question, in the right light conditions can you easily pick the drake black ducks out?
 
Love the music in the teaser!!! ( Ecstasy of Gold)

Stay away from the divers! They are addictive!!!!
 
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Absolutely Carl, especially late season migrating birds the drakes are larger and have bright yellow bills. I try to shoot drakes when I can, low light... well next season having the two black limit is going to help those first light flights.
 
Always enjoy the videos you put up. Really thought the light bar put a great perspective on the morning ride. Love the blind doors in the Roy boat.
 
Cool.
Its pretty tough with mottled ducks, especially in early season when we mainly see them before they seemingly disappear. But the differences are the same as black ducks, bill color and size.
 
Anytime Phil, one of those pics is from shortly after we spoke.

The light bar makes it easy for long runs in the dark without having to hold a handheld spotlight. I still bring my handheld and use it when needed but hardly ever since I put the light bar on. High tide, south jersey ditches with no boat traffic to worry about, means you can run at speed even in low light conditions.
 
Wow. First of all nice shooting. I mostly to be selfish hope those were like the five great shots you had all season but seems like you might be that good. That's a hell of a pinner too. We only see them here really late season if at all


And one question, how tall are the tops of cockpit on that boat?

Tony
 
Ha ha would you believe most of my best hunts I didn't even bother recording? I have 120 gigs of footage to sort through, but no I don't shoot that well all the time. As a matter of fact I had shot so poorly earlier in the day that one clip with the three mallards I told myself I was going to let them land in the boat if it would make me shoot better... I also have four angles of just about every shot, obviously only used one or two of some in this short video.

As far as depth of the cockpit from the floor to the bottom of the flapper boards? I want to say it's around 24"
 
Good morning, Craig~

Spectacular!

It's all great - but I really enjoyed watching you break ice - that brings back lots of memories.

All the best,

SJS
 
Very nice. This coastal storm and the associated flooding is really going to dampen the hunting the first half of this week. Hopefully we can finish strong the last few days of the season
 
Ha ha yeah the three? days we had ice this season? Two days after that video was shot it was 60 degrees... It's hard for me to get excited this last week with the way the weather has been but I'm going to try to get out a couple more times if I can. It's a long wait until next October!
 
Craig, we're experiencing the same weather phenomenon in coastal NC. What's dad is the you guys don't even have birds for weather to push our way. I'm a little excited about the challenge of hunting this year. Maybe some of the less dedicated hunters will take up golf or something....
 
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