Tennessee Opener

B

Braden Maddox

Member
The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the traditional opener for most of Tennessee. It is open for the weekend, closed the next 5 day, and then opens again till the end of the 60 day season. We have a family owned property purely for duck hunting that butts up to a major duck river and in the vicinity of several public wmas. Our hole is about 11 acres that holds water all year and is purely natural containing lilly pads, buck brush, and some shoreline vegetation.
Saturday morning saw a warm forecast. Temperature at shooting time was 51 degrees. Lots of birds were flying and a light breeze helped with getting ducks to work. We had our 4 man limit around 10. A good variety of green with our bag consisting of gwt, mallards, gray ducks, and wigeon.
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Sunday was much cooler with temperatures approaching freezing. However there was no wind whatsoever. That combined with all of the shooting the day before had the ducks being quite a bit more weary then the day before. I had to leave early to make it back for church so I don't have any pictures. But a smaller bag of 14 consisting of mallards, grays, and a single each of wigeon, spoonbill, and ringneck.

This weekend's forecast is sun with a "calm breeze." I hope we have more than the calm breeze! Without any weather events to push in new ducks, working birds may be tougher again!.
 
Congrats on a couple fine hunts, and way to keep the first things, first. We got the big skunk, but that's no surprise over here. The weatherman has me a little excited for next week though. They keep saying "arctic blast."
 
Michael McCord said:
Congrats on a couple fine hunts, and way to keep the first things, first. We got the big skunk, but that's no surprise over here. The weatherman has me a little excited for next week though. They keep saying "arctic blast."
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You may need to slide down 40 west at some point this season.
 
Bradden, what side of the state are you hunting? My wife is from the far eastern end. Try as I might, I just don't see where you'd find many birds around there. It's not in the cards at the moment, but if there was hope for duck hunting over there it sure would add to the urgency to relocate from dry central TX.
 
I am in the North West portion of the state hunting a river bottom that is off of the Tennessee River.

From what my understanding about the far Eastern part of the state, you'll need to do some driving either East or West to find a good amount of birds.
 
Congratulations, Braden, there is some good eatin' to be had from that pile of birds. How "tight" a piece of open water can you get ringnecks to work?
 
I've seen ringnecks get down in some narrow fields that are right beside the TN River, I'm talking fields that are about half a football field. Our spot is about 11 acres but it has a lot of buck brush that shrinks our open water. We ultimately have a strip that's about 50-60 yards out by 250-300 yards long
 
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