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...scouting? I'll start hittin it in September. We obviously don't have an early teal season here

Here in another few weeks I'll try to get out and start patterning the geese. We (me and my hunting partner) don't usually do the whole early season thing. But I might try to give it a shot.

I don't. At least not until about 2 days before the second split. First split is stupid, no birds around, second they're finally showing up, and by the third split, it doesn't really matter where you go. You'll see black ducks and buffleheads. At least in the spots I hunt.

I don't scout til 1 or 2 days before a hunt, weather and birds can change too quick around here.

I don't, I just go where I had good luck last year. I am spoiled and hunt a club. It has screwed me a few times when I didn't go check out the blinds before the season starts. I did learn last year that a few well placed 12 gauge rounds will take down any pesky willow trees that decide to grow right next to your blind.

we dont scout... we piss excellence... the birds come to us

I plan on getting out Sunday just to see if there's any water to hung for early wood duck.

weve had so much rain here lately.. weve pretty much been getting rain every day, i went down to the wma where i hunt a lot and the river was up higher than ive ever seen it, about to spill over and the current was super strong. there was no way i was putting a kayak in there so i left.

One of the ramps we put it in sometimes. Usually a few feet of water.

WOW thats dryness. id send you some of this moisture if i could.

assateague wrote:I don't. At least not until about 2 days before the second split. First split is stupid, no birds around, second they're finally showing up, and by the third split, it doesn't really matter where you go. You'll see black ducks and buffleheads. At least in the spots I hunt.

honestly, right after I posted this question, I thought to myself, I shoulda reworded it "Who even scouts before the opener?"

I'll scout geese the week before the season. No scouting for ducks.


Sasquatch hunting expert

I will really start scouting about 2 weeks before the season. We have a good amount of local birds here and if you find them closer to the season that's where the birds passing through will end up. The 2-3 days before the season are the most important IMO though.

A few places I normally hunt for ducks should produce some good dove hunting this year, lots of foxtail.

Sasquatch I scout every day


Sasquatch hunting expert

jarbo03 wrote:I don't scout til 1 or 2 days before a hunt, weather and birds can change too quick around here.

x2, early teal is hit or miss for me and I'll be dove hunting also.

I start August first and go out 3 evenings and every saturday and sunday morning. Timing early season geese before the fields are cut is hard and every little bit of info helps.

don taylor wrote:I start August first and go out 3 evenings and every saturday and sunday morning. Timing early season geese before the fields are cut is hard and every little bit of info helps.

yea my duck spots are usually consistent. Either consistently good or consistently bad. So I usually know what to expect. I'll hit em up the week before the season just to see what the numbers look like. But geese is all about scouting

Gonna be a short resident goose for me this year. It runs Sept 1-15, like normal, but this year bow season starts on the 7th, instead of the 15th. Usually I get 3 days of goose before bow season (can't hunt on Sundays, and I don't have unlimited time off of work), but looks like it might only be one. I'll have to hope that those geese keep coming over at 8 every night, so I can add that to a day out in the (very hot mosquito, horsefly, and deerfly infested) marsh.

Our bow season opens 25th of aug this year. So, I'll be bowhunting elk here near the hous for the first part of the early goose. Then,I'll be bow hunting elk in WY later(sept 15th) . Won't be hunting early goose at all. If I was, I wouldn't waste time on scouting prior to a week before. Too many food sources, would be a waste of time a month early.
Probably gonna miss the duck opener too, due to a 2 week rifle elk hunt Oct15-30.
I rarely scout ducks because I have hunted most of my areas for long enough to know where to find birds, depending on timing and weather.
I do run down to the river and check on the raft sizes of Bluebills from dec. on. I try to hunt the part of the river that has the rafts of 500+ birds.

There is a big difference in bird numbers between your area and mine, along with about a dozen other factors. Your gameplan is similar to my fellow statesman and it simply doesn't yeild results around here. Talk about shooting over 100 birds a season, almost everybody hear calls bullshit, it's that hard. My dedication is what gets me results. I wish i had it easier, really, but out here in the duck desert, it's tough. We have tons of geese, but you can't just go sit at old reliable and expect them to show up early season.

I just follow the guys with the fancy trucks and duck rigs. Figure they had the money to put in the miles scouting.

I only scout for geese. Ducks are always in the same spots every year so it's not really needed to scout them. Geese on the other hand... Usually go the night before early season opens and check all of my fields, then hunt the one with the most in it. I live right on the St. Lawrence river, so even though it's "resident" geese, it's still pretty easy to hunt traffic in fields that are less than a mile away from the river. Once duck and goose opens together, I usually only go for geese if I can get more than 6 to go. Taking the time to set the spread up and grass the blinds just isn't worth it anymore to limit out before sunrise then have to pick it all back up.

I have a secret to avoid time consuming scouting. First they harvest my rice field then I bring out a truck load of decoys. They flood said field and that's when I bring out Trixiy the decoy, she is a real duck slut of a decoy, she even took off last season for a few days. When she returned she was drunk, on birth control, and had a tramp stamp ... Drakes can't resist her. I just plop her out in the middle of my spread, giver her a natural light tall boy and a pack of Marbrol red's, game on. Get ready here they come boys!

Bootlipkiller wrote:I have a secret to avoid time consuming scouting. First they harvest my rice field then I bring out a truck load of decoys. They flood said field and that's when I bring out Trixiy the decoy, she is a real duck slut of a decoy, she even took off last season for a few days. When she returned she was drunk, on birth control, and had a tramp stamp ... Drakes can't resist her. I just plop her out in the middle of my spread, giver her a natural light tall boy and a pack of Marbrol red's, game on. Get ready here they come boys!

Who are you trying to kid? There's no way they sell natty light and marb reds in Cali

Eric Haynes wrote:I only scout for geese. Ducks are always in the same spots every year so it's not really needed to scout them. Geese on the other hand... Usually go the night before early season opens and check all of my fields, then hunt the one with the most in it. I live right on the St. Lawrence river, so even though it's "resident" geese, it's still pretty easy to hunt traffic in fields that are less than a mile away from the river. Once duck and goose opens together, I usually only go for geese if I can get more than 6 to go. Taking the time to set the spread up and grass the blinds just isn't worth it anymore to limit out before sunrise then have to pick it all back up.

wish I had your problem

Goldfish wrote:

Bootlipkiller wrote:I have a secret to avoid time consuming scouting. First they harvest my rice field then I bring out a truck load of decoys. They flood said field and that's when I bring out Trixiy the decoy, she is a real duck slut of a decoy, she even took off last season for a few days. When she returned she was drunk, on birth control, and had a tramp stamp ... Drakes can't resist her. I just plop her out in the middle of my spread, giver her a natural light tall boy and a pack of Marbrol red's, game on. Get ready here they come boys!

Who are you trying to kid? There's no way they sell natty light and marb reds in Cali

child please

They still sell it they just tax the holy hell out of it. I never said using Trixiy was cheep, her birth control alone is $80.00 a month but it's worth it. I think she would be less effective with stretch marks.

Red, I thought Cali was loaded with geese like NY? I was in SF/marysville last summer and saw quite a few geese and ducks.

Eric Haynes wrote:Red, I thought Cali was loaded with geese like NY? I was in SF/marysville last summer and saw quite a few geese and ducks.

I'm not in the main flyway. I'm on the north coast. We get very few honkers. So few the limit is 1 a day. We get hit with aleutian heavy but they're tough little bastards to hunt