Sea Duck Depths in Northeast Coastal Waters

BrentS

BrentS

Active member
I also posted this on the DU forum, but thought maybe I'd check here, too:

I thinking of trying sea duck hunting off Long Island (NY), and was wondering what are some typical water depth recommendations for Surf/Black Scoters...maybe Old Squaw....Eiders?




 
I don't think there is any set depth, When were gunning Montauk we usually set up in 18'-20', but I have set up out at Great Eastern in 40'. When we gun Gardners Island depths very from 12' to 50', we just try to set up where the biggest consentration of birds are. In Oct and early Nov gunning Montauk is a hack. Not because we don't have the birds but becuse of the boats out fishing, so we usually start out gunning Gardners where there is little boat traffic
 
Brent... out here near the Hamptons when I have hunted them the best spots have been channels or narrow passages between two points of land where the birds are forced to fly through. Most of the time water depths have been 15-30ft in those areas that I remember
 
We've found good numbers of birds about a 1/4 to a 1/2 mile off the beach in roughly 25' of water...East of Jones Inlet...Always birds there and almost never hunters..miles and miles of open water.My son got a drake eider there 2 years back..We always try to do a seaduck hunt early before the marsh..."beckons"..
 
Don't really pay attention to the depths. Sea ducks can be found in any and all waters, from 10 feet to 100 feet of water. You want to find the feeding areas - mussel bars, ledges, reefs, etc. and set up on the X. Do some scouting and find out where the birds are coming in to feed. It could be several miles on on a ledge where mussels and urchins are found, or it could be just off the shore in a mooring field. Eider love to come into the mooring fields to feed on the young mussles that are stuck to the chains. Sometimes, you will find more eider in close than you will far out.

Do some scouting.




Nate
 
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