Duck-Hunting Guides Tell All
Solving Five of the Most-Common Duck-Hunting Problems
Editor’s
Note: For 23 years, Billy Blakely has hunted ducks every
day of duck season on Reelfoot Lake near Tiptonville,
Tennessee, in Tennessee’s northwestern corner.
Most of the guides, at Bluebank Resort including Jason
Craig and Shane Upchurch, who work with him at Blue
Bank Resort hunt 40 to 50 days each season. They’ve
seen all the mistakes duck hunters make and know how
to solve duck-hunting problems. Let’s learn how
to solve some of our own duck-hunting difficulties.
1) Over-calling - “I have to name over-calling
as one the main problems that duck hunters have,”
Billy Blakely says. “Many hunters want to keep
calling to the ducks until they squeeze their triggers.
For instance, we’ll have a flight of ducks come
in to the blind, and the hunters still will be blowing
a hail call. However, the only time to blow a hail call
is when the ducks are going away from you. When the
ducks are coming to you, you need to give some soft
chatter or light quacks. Before I’ve been calling
soft like that with a big flight of ducks coming straight
in and have had a hunter right behind me pick up his
call and blow a loud hail call that spooks the ducks
away from the blind. I believe
the biggest mistake hunters make is calling too much
and too loudly.”
2) Moving around in a blind or looking straight up
at the ducks while a caller’s trying to bring
in the birds – “On cloudy days especially,
the ducks can practically see a mouse run across the
floor of the blind from 1/4-mile in the air,”
Jason Craig mentions. “When they see the shiny
face of a hunter looking up or moving, those birds will
fly away from the blind. But instead of looking at the
ducks, keep your head and face down, and don’t
move when the ducks are working the decoys. Let the
caller watch the birds, tell you where they are, when
to come up, and when to shoot. You’ll get many
more ducks this way. The only time you should move when
the duck are coming in is when you’re coming up
to shoot. The guide or the caller will tell you where
the ducks will be, so, as soon as you come out of the
blind you know where to look to see the ducks.
3) Shooting too soon – “Many times I have
hunters shoot when the ducks are out 80 to 90 yards
from the blind,” Shane Upchurch reports. “These
people waste more shells and spook more ducks than any
other type of hunter I ever have in the blind. This
problem often happens when you’re hunting close
to another blind. The ducks may appear to be going to
the other blind, and the hunter in my blind will think,
"I’ll
shoot that duck before it gets to the other blind,"
although there’s no way he’ll be able to
touch that duck with his shells. I’ve found that
trying to break a hunter from shooting ducks far away
is like trying to break a dog from being gun-shy. It’s
not going to happen. A sky buster is always going to
be a sky buster.”
4) Bringing the wrong size shell – “We
have quite a few hunters who will bring T-shot instead
of No. 2s or No. 4s,” Upchurch mentions. “T-shot,
a big shot, has been designed to shoot geese close to
the blind. One morning we had a group of hunters all
shooting T-shot when we called in a flight of teal with
about 60 birds in it. We got the teal within less than
30 yards, and all six hunters came up shooting. They
never touched a single teal with their shot. If they’d
been shooting smaller shot like No. 2s or No. 4s, even
if they could shoot accurately, with that much lead
in the air they would at least have taken one or two
ducks. However, they never cut a feather on any teal
that came in to the decoys. When you’re hunting
teal like we do, we recommend hunters shoot No. 4 shot.
Even when we’re hunting mallards, we still recommend
No. 2 and No. 4 s.”
5) Wearing the wrong clothes to the blind – “We
have many hunters from Florida and
Georgia, and they don’t wear enough warm clothes
to stay comfortable in the blind,” Blakely says.
“Those folks nearly freeze to death on the boat
ride from the launch to the blind. We keep our blinds
warm with heaters, but for someone not accustomed to
hunting ducks and being in cold weather, the blind still
may feel cool. Most of the time the hunters' feet get
the coldest. I had one hunter offer me a brand-new Browning
shotgun for my military boots like all the guides wear.
Actually that hunter came close to getting my boots
that morning in a trade for that Browning. Too, one
year the lake was frozen, and we had to use an airboat
to reach our blinds. When you’re riding in an
airboat, that cold wind will cut through almost any
kind of clothing. On the morning we were going to hunt
ducks, one of my hunters came out wearing a lightweight
pullover shirt without even a coat or a rain suit jacket.
I asked him, ‘Fella, where’s your coat?
This morning will be cold.’ The man sort of frowned
and insisted he was accustomed to this kind of weather.
I told him, ‘Okay. Sit up here with me next to
the fan.’ But by the time we reached the blind,
that hunter had frost on his mustache. The second morning
when he came out to go to the blind he looked like the
Pillsbury doughboy, he had on so many clothes. Another
morning we had a hunter in the blind, and his feet got
so cold he took his boots off and put his sock feet
so close to the heater that he caught his socks on fire.
We had to put the fire out on his feet.”
To learn more about duck hunting at Bluebank Resort,
call (731) 253-8976 or check out www.bluebankresort.com.
Tomorrow: Solving Seven More
of the Most-Common Duck-Hunting Problems
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