posted 12-29-2006 05:53 PM            

I finally became frustrated with the whole mix of money, leases, and jackasses; I now spend $250 a year and fly back to my brother's place in upstate New York and hunt there for a 5-day or so spell with him. Now that's an amazing deal (upstate NY) and the best kept secret in duck hunting (IMHO).

If I were moving to the West just to hunt, I wouldn't. I grew up in Colorado, and it really is God's country. Still, when I retire from the AF in '09, the family will probably move to WY or NM since Colo is just growing too much.

posted 12-29-2006 09:01 PM            

I'm still in the learning stages of duck hunting, but looking to go this weekend with LynW. If I get any info worth passing on, I'll let you know. There aren't a lot of people that duck hunt around here. Mostly deer and turkey. I've done quite a bit of dove hunting around here and am now trying to get into ducks. It's no Mississippi or Arkansas, but there have to be ducks around here somewhere.

Hopefully I'll have some news by Sunday afternoon. I know you can hunt the Sound in FWB, but have to shoot towards the Gulf and not towards town. There are ducks in that water every now and then. I've seen them while fishing. If I had a duck boat, I'd give it a shot. My flats boat isn't exactly camoflauged and I don't have decoys right now.

Anyway, he's scouting in the morning while I spray a truck (I own a spray in bedliner business) and he is supposed to call me in the afternoon. We may or may not hunt tomorrow or Sunday, depending if he sees anything. If not, I'll be shooting rabbits in Baker

posted 01-03-2007 08:23 PM            

I too just moved (back) to NW Florida, and am in the process of learning where/how to hunt.

A buddy of mine and I went out the past 2 weekends, and we have had some success with the buffleheads on the bay. We missed a few opportunities with some readheads, but its all good.

posted 01-06-2007 02:39 PM            

My buddy and I went out and hit it again this A.M. on the Choctawhatchee bay, not nearly the ammount of birds that we saw last weekend. Pretty dissapointing actually.

Lots of buffleheads east of the 331 bridge, about 9.4 million Comorants, and a flock of about 9 bluebills.

We set up on a point, threw out about 6 dozen decoys, and managed 1 bluebill, 3 buffs. Missed our one chance at a readhead aobut 1 minute after first light, it was going about mach 4 right though our spread.

posted 01-06-2007 06:48 PM            

Thanks for the update. I saw the millions of comerants on the bay, too. Also, outside the Shaliamr Yatch club was a bunch of hooded mergansers; kind of neat to see.

With those birds getting my interest, I decided to check out a little beaver pond on Eglin I found while deer hunting. So, I went down about 3:30 and as I was putting out my six teal dekes I managed to bust up about 40 teal on the other side of the pond. They scooted into the grass, so I went around to see if I could jump shoot them. I managed to get right on top of them and blew the shot! What a fool. Right around sunset, a woodie buzzed me as I was thinking of packing it in; it would have been a really bad passing shot, so I let him. I figure it's a good sign, tho, that there are some birds out there.

posted 01-06-2007 11:26 PM            

They were flying so dang high, we were having a real hard time. Oh well, it's better than sitting on my couch.

Might try and bust some rabbits tomorrow if it doesn't pour buckets like last weekend.

Glad you guys are seeing some ducks.

posted 01-14-2007 10:03 AM            

Lots of buffleheads, and we saw quite a few flocks of "big" ducks heading towards the P-cola bay.

Had a flight of 3 Readheads visit our decoy spread, only one managed to get away. The drake was beautiful and my hunting partner is putting him on the wall.

about 10 minutes later, 2 bluebills popped up right over our spread, and we splashed the drake. Again, he is going on the wall.

posted 01-17-2007 01:28 PM            

On the way to our spot well before sunrise, we damn near ran over around 200 bluebills..expectations were high. We threw out 7 dozen dekes, and only had a shot at 5 birds all morning. All readheads. the wind was so bad that even the buffleheads weren't flying. all told we probably saw 30 ducks while we were hunting. On the way back to the ramp we ran across quite a few big rafts of bluebills, so they are here, just content to sit in the middle I guess.

It also was amazing how fast the water emptied out of the bay with the strong north wind......we had to find a different boat ramp to get the boat out of the water.

posted 01-17-2007 06:28 PM            

That is one of the spots we have yet to try, but I've been told that its a great spot. A little tough to get to in the A.M. due to zero boat ramps where we want to be.

My buddy and I have been hunting the NE side of the Choctawhatchee, near Alaqua, east of the 331 bridge, and the sound towards P-cola.

There is a butt load of birds in the sound right now, and that is where we have went the past 4 hunts. Problem is once they are rafted up, they don't move very much. Our plan today was to hunt the sound, and then pull the boat and put in up at East Bay, and run up towards the Yellow and scout out spots for this weekend. The wind today canned that plan.

We are still learning the sea ducks, this is our first season down here. We are starting to figure these puppy's out, but there is an awful lot of water to cover and not enough time. Our intent this year was to figure everything out for next year!