Thread: not the greatest start to the season yesterday...

for us anyway!
My first time out duck shooting and there was not much flying around first thing in the morning.
We did hear some ducks in the pond in the early hours of the morning but nothing around at first light, everything that was flying around was either too far away or out of range and what i tried to shoot i was unable to hit.
I had been hoping to get in some target practice prior to the opening, my only experience has been trap shooting clay targets some time back which seemed pretty easy to hit i felt at the time.
Not sure what range you get out of steel shot, but would assume 50 metres is maximum depending on choke?
What I do know was there was a hell of a ton of guns going off all over the place at first light, so other maimais must have had a good amount of ducks flying overhead.
After speaking to some nearby shooters in the adjacent maimai, was told that last season was much better, also bumped into another shooter who managed to hit 6 ducks and said that the warm weather was putting them off landing and they like to land in the ponds when its wet.
Perhaps we need to wait until we get a patch of drizzle and try again?

35 yards is better than 50. A drizzly day may be better than fine

That sounds like every one of my opening days over the last 8 years or so!

Unless you're a shit hot shot, limit yourself to birds coming in to your decoys. Taking pot shots at those high and fast moving birds only leads to inevitable disappointment.

Originally Posted by MB

That sounds like every one of my opening days over the last 8 years or so!

Unless you're a shit hot shot, limit yourself to birds coming in to your decoys. Taking pot shots at those high and fast moving birds only leads to inevitable disappointment.

Yeah I figured i may as well have a go at them since there was nothing much else we had a chance to shoot at, from talking to the others we bumped into, thats how they were having to shoot theirs.

They are definitely way easier to hit on short final with wheels and flaps down.

As an aside, a bloke not to far from me has set up an elaborate sporting clay field and he often gets hunters wanting to improve their shooting.
He has some random looking pegs out in the middle of the field and he inevitably asks them "what distance do you normally shoot your ducks?"
The majority of guys point at one particular peg. This happens to be the 60 yard peg.
Very few shooters can hit a clay at 60 yards.
Bring the targets inside 40 yards and the hit ratio climbs dramatically.

past 40 yards is the domain of big payloads of big pellets=big recoil and big $$$$$ per round.
and you got to lead bird by a big amount too.... get out in different weather and have another go.

How I improved my hit ratio was to improve my calling and my decoy layout to get the birds as close as you can, rougher weather especially wind seems to help a lot where I shoot

Originally Posted by Hunter595

How I improved my hit ratio was to improve my calling and my decoy layout to get the birds as close as you can, rougher weather especially wind seems to help a lot where I shoot

thats one thing the change over to steel MADE us do.... the days of pass shooting swans at 70 yards are long gone unless you prepared to spend big bucks on super premium ammunition...the new HSS shot is being advertised but havent seen any in shops yet.

Originally Posted by Hunter595

How I improved my hit ratio was to improve my calling and my decoy layout to get the birds as close as you can, rougher weather especially wind seems to help a lot where I shoot

Got to have motion on the water, either a pull line or a motion decoy..

One of the slowest opening weekends we have had in the Manawatu. Saturday the birds were scarce and very cagey but Sunday we did have a good morning shoot and had them decoying much nicer. Still managed a few though, cracker as always.

Concealment, well practiced calling, and movement on the water will greatly up your chances