Best Hunting Weather and Decoy Spread???

C

Chris DeRonde

Member
Hello All,

I hunt on the bays of Long Island, New York. The season just kick off and it has been OK so far. I got a couple of Black ducks, three Mallards and some Broadbill this weekend.

But, the question is, What is the best weather to hunt Mallards in(sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy)? and what is a good small decoy spread for shoreline or marsh hunting. I can't figure out what I do right and what I do wrong.

Thanks for your input...
Chris
 
Usually wind is the key factor. Even more important than wind is the tide. Most ducks feed on the low tide so a dropping tide seems to be the best time. As for smaller decoy spreads, in NJ I've found 5-6 mallards, 3 widgeon, and 4 black ducks seem to be the trick in the coastal. Make sure your spread is set so that with the prevailing wind the birds will not pass over the mallards first to get to the hole in the decoys. This would be fine for mallards but black ducks tend to be wary and will want to land with their own kind, I have seen many wary black ducks get even more wary if they have to pass over other decoys to get with their own kind. Ideally you want the first decoys downwind to be the blacks. Hope that makes some kind of sense... also the more clouds the better IMO
 
Around here, if we are talking water hunting, we do the best by far on sunny days with a moderate wind (preferably Southerly). The mallards are more predictable on sunny days, go to fields early AM, come back 9-11AM looking for a drink, and that's when we shoot most of our birds. They'll feed in the PM too, so the last hour or so of light is often good, but morning is typically a better flight, and more predictable.

I suppose your spreads are going to be different over there. We don't have many blacks here, so we use mostly mallards, the more competition, the more decoys we'll use. But if you can get in a good flight path without many other hunters/birds right near you, a couple doz or less should do the trick. We've shot plenty of greenheads over ~2 doz decoys when in a good spot. The biggest thing is to watch what the birds do and how they act when you set up a certain way. Don't change everything the next time or you won't know what made the difference. If you pay attention to these things, you can learn a lot pretty fast.
 
Chris,
Since you have had success already, then you're doing something right and that is location. You hunt where the birds want to land. I like any day to hunt but found that cloudy and moderate winds are the perferred days to hunt mallards for me. On sunny days, I like to hunt mid morning, only because the sun glare isn't blinding. The windy, snowy, icy days - I'll rig for divers. For tides, I like hunting the shift ( high to low or low to high) seem the birds move around a tide shift also.

I was out in Moriches Bay for the opener and weekend and although I saw some ducks, I didn't see the numbers that has been projected.


Good luck this season, be safe.

-Jack
 
Forgot to mention, the reason I like Southerly winds is so that I don't have to look into the sun, but the birds do have to look into the sun when landing, and it seems much harder for them to spot us. Also the shadows give us something to hide in I think.
 
Thanks for the input guys, it all helps

Hey, LI-Jack I hunted opening day off of Sayville. There was a cloud of ducks that flew by out in the middle of the bay, I thought they were broad-bill, but I spoke to a guy that was hunting off of Heckshire and they flew right over him and he said they were black ducks. They never flew my way.
 
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