Can You.....

[don novicki]

Still sit in the duck blind ALL DAY? I mean from sun up to sun down esp. if it's not all that great? I can't anymore. I could go in the early a.m. and come back for a p.m. hunt but to sit all day. Can't do it anymore. Who's next?

[SpinnerMan]

It depends. Most of my regular duck hunting. No. Those are half day hunts. But when I am going to the pits in winter for ducks and geese. I plan on all day. If it's after duck season closes, I hope for a short day, but am usually good for all day as long as there are some birds in the area. On my out of town trips, I am good to go all day.

[Rick]

Don't recall ever trying to sit in a blind sunup to sundown, but it doesn't sound appealing.

I got serious about duck hunting during the period when I ordered eight years of my life around following pointing dogs through the ruffed grouse woods part of most every (Oct-Feb) open day we weren't on the road to hunt they or something else. So waterfowling was mostly an early morning warmup to that.

Once down here, upland soon took a back seat to waterfowling, which wasn't apt to require more than a (usually very) few hours to limit. And guiding soon meant getting parties back to camp for brunch or lunch, though I was usually off again with another party on afternoon hunts. Was even a ten year stretch when it was ducks in the morning, preserve birds in midday and finishing the day with geese. And the days before wild quail faded from the land and the dogs and I could hunt they and woodcock between morning and evening waterfowl parties were heaven on earth.

Moving to a blind with a 9:30, lease mandated, marsh curfew and the deterioration of our region's upland and afternoon waterfowling opportunities shortened my hunt days more than I often wished over these last 14 seasons. But it sure beat sitting here during an open season wondering when the drought will break and water return to SWLA fresh marsh - as well as if I'll have a spot there when it does...

[SpinnerMan]

"But when I am going to the pits in winter for ducks and geese. I plan on all day."

One thing that is different hunting ducks and geese in the winter at the cooling lakes is the geese tend to fly in the morning and ducks in the afternoon. If you leave at noon, you have probably had the best of the goose hunting. However, you might not have seen a duck. Hunt just the last hour or two before the end of shooting time and you will normally have the best of the duck hunting for the day. So if you want to hunt ducks and geese it's an all day affair. If it's really cold, the geese normally fly later in the morning, so we often set up and then go have breakfast. If the hunting is even mediocre, you should at least be seeing birds from around 10AM until sunset.

[Deltaman]

Used to have no qualms to a full day, especially if it involved a combo of hunting and fishing (was pretty common most of my life), but my battery life just isn't as strong as it used to be. I can push through if I think it's worth the effort, but most of the time, I opt for a half-day, be it hunting or fishing. That juice/squeeze thing seems to have more relevance nowadays