Well sounds like this post turned into a meet and greet.
Hi...my name is Tom...I like to hunt ducks.
In all serious though. I just joined end of last season. I found this place and I think it's awesome. I love all of the threads on duck boats, sneak boxes, BBSB's and the like. I learned everything I know about them from this site. I've only been hunting ducks for about 5 years now. Dad or nobody from my family ever hunted ducks so I am learning the hard way. I am almost 40 now, I am sure there are teenagers that know more than me. But it's what I look forward to all year.
My first season I converted a 14' low v-hull into a duck boat. Camo'd it out, built a blind out of wood and die cut camo material. I bought a dozen flambeau decoys and my brother in law gave me like 3 dozen of his old decoys. I spent my whole first season trying to find places to hunt. Well I found some, but they weren’t much good. I live around Chicago and the hunting pressure is pretty stiff. And I don’t know anyone where I could get access to any good private lands to hunt. I mainly hunted a local river and a local lake system. Both from my boat and from blinds that we drew for or jumped if nobody showed up to hunt. This was also the first year shooting a shot gun. I picked up a couple of cheap duck calls. A Buck Garner original wench, a double nasty and a goose call. As you can expect I was a terrible caller at first, just couldn’t figure it out. My brother in law helped me out a lot, but it had been years since he hunted. I think I managed to down a couple of birds, but it was everything about duck hunting that fascinated me. I would spend the whole day in the blind, scanning the sky and not shot a duck. My buddy also got me down to his duck club on the Illinois river and it was an AMAZING day. I couldn’t believe there were that many ducks in one location. What a difference from the poor public hunts I had been on.
The next year we upped our game. I went in and bought a 16’ lowe jon that was already set up for duck hunting. It’s in my avatar. I bought this boat with a buddy of mine. We added a few things to the boat here and there. We bought 8 goose floaters and added a couple of dozen new decoys to our spread. I also spent the off-season repainting the old decoys my brother in law lent to me. We expanded our hunting sites to include some of the lakes managed by the IDNR and I began to become more successful. The duck calling was coming along. Still pretty weak, but like I said, I didn’t grow up with a duck call in my mouth. This second year I ended up taking quite a few more ducks than my first season as well as adding geese to our bags. I also really learned how to take care of the game and prepare it. A whole new dimension to hunting. By now, I was on a lust for information, reading as much as possible, watching duck hunting shows and joining DU. At this point I became a real addict.
My third year, I was becoming more in tune with some of the finer points of duck hunting. How to set up the decoys. When and how to call ducks…getting better….but still not quite there…not sure if I ever will be, but heck it’s fun. We added some spinning decoys to our spread and I added a few duck decoys and got a decent goose decoy that I then picked up pretty quick, thank you RNT CD for helping in this area. I hunted early season goose for the first time and actually bagged a few. This was a huge accomplishment because it’s the first geese I hunted by myself. We still were bound to our public hunting grounds, but our ability to harvest ducks increased by gaining knowledge of the “good” blind locations and “good” weather days….and putting in our time. We had a ton of fun. I coined the phrase, “it’s not fun unless it’s an adventure”. Our adventures included leaving the plug out of the boat, dead batteries, motors that wouldn’t start, decoys that swam off, fallin in the lake, loosing an axel on the way home. And each of them is filled with fond memories despite the event….no, nobody was ever really hurt. I also learned the meaning of camaraderie…and cooking breakfast in the blind. Breakfast now has a new meaning. I think this year I hunted around 20 days of the season, including goose. By now, I learned that sitting in the blind for 10hrs was kinda silly. So I became a smarter hunter. And I like to think that sites like this have really helped my skills. My buddy at the club invited me down for another hunt. This time we got a Sat and Sunday hunt in and oh boy did we put a hurt on them. But it made my public hunting all that more difficult to accept the lower success rates. So I began to look outside of what I was doing. That’s when I found this site and I began to learn a ton. I was totally intrigued by the depth of history that I found on the site. It was a totally different atmosphere than I felt around the public hunting scene. I got the sense that many of the folks on the site had been hunting and carving and boat building all their lives.
My fourth year we added some floating geese shells to our arsenal, and hunted hard. My bro-in-law got in around 30 days this season. We modified our blind with some fast grass to blend in better. Each year has been a learning experience. I even began to pass some of my information down to other junior hunters.
Last year I was fortunate enough to join my buddy’s duck club. I sold my duck boat to my brother in law for which by now was really back into duck hunting and having his own addiction. But what a year we had, the worst in club history….I must have hunted at least 20 times down at the club. But I kept up my hunting with my Bro-in-Law. We probably hunted 6-7 times this past season. We expanded our game into field hunting for geese. Since I sold my other boat, I have also dived into the threads about boat building. I have read all sorts of articles on the BBSBs, Hybrids, Gator, Foamers, Kara’s, sunfish conversions, you name it, I have read it. Complexities of the boats seem dependent on the builder, man that is a whole different world. Juggling life between the job, wife and 3 kids sometimes makes it hard to spend time at what you want to do. There’s no telling how many plans I have laid out for a boat of my own, the latest plan was a mix between a bbsb and a hybrid. I got a 9.9 kicker and wanted something for me, dog and a buddy. Just thinking about building a boat is fascinating. A guy can dream all day about it. So I came to the decision to buy a boat. I’ve been looking at classifieds for almost a year now. Not wanting to break the bank because of the cost of the club and life in general. So I found a boat….on this site. And I hope to pick it up this weekend if things all work out. Trick is to tell your wife you are buying a duck boat on Fathers Day…what can she say!! I also bought a female black lab this past April. So I am in the midst of training my new buddy.
A lot of this I owe to this site. For teaching me the ins, the outs and giving me new perspectives and ideas. I love the feeling of history and that is truly unique to this site. I have met new friends because of the skills I have learned. I have hunted with people I would have never met before if it wasn’t for duck hunting. I hope to be more active and participate more in this site. I don’t carve….I haven’t built a duck boat, yet. I do hunt, and I can share those stories if anyone will listen. I hope to learn the art of hunting in a small boat and really blending into the surroundings. I hope to share some pics and stories of this coming years hunts. Lord willing our club will be back to a normal hunting year, the dog will add a new dimension of enjoyment and my soon to be new duck/marsh boat will be the cherry on top.
Thanks for reading. I hope I have added a little to this site.
Again, my name is Tom...I like to hunt ducks.
