posted 01-18-2010 08:29 AM            

Like most divers, the more the merrier when it comes to decoys. The hunting would be tough on Seminole as its a huge lake...Im sure that there are spots where the Cans congregate in areas where they can be got, but Im sure that those areas require an intimacy with the waters that comes from experience.

Id suggest a large spread - and I think that Cans will oftentimes segregate themselves from other species - sorry to say but a small diver spread wont be very effective , especially on a lake like Seminole where you can have very large rafts of birds out in the open water.

In such circumstances, a Layout boat would be lethal. you gotta be in the middle with em to have the best shot...and this late in the season many birds, even divers, are not going to fall for a blinded up jonboat etc etc out there. Theyve been shot at their entire trip down and now theyve learned (or remembered) local areas as well.

posted 01-28-2010 04:48 PM            

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Originally posted by bwilliams:
Went hunting on Lake Seminole this past weekend with my Dad and I have never seen so many Canvasbacks in my life! I had heard the reports last year of how many birds the lake holds this time of year, but I guess I had to see it for myself to really believe it. We hunted Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and really didn't have a lot of luck. My question is, are there any tricks of the trade when hunting these birds particularly on Seminole? The problems we were having is that they did not want to decoy in to us. This is the first time I've hunted Canvasbacks so there is a good chance we were doing something wrong. We had 6 large canvasback decoys, a dozen coots, and another 6 ringers in our spread. I don't know if this is not enough or too many. We were hunting out of a jon boat with a blind and got into the tall grass where we were covered up pretty well. The birds didn't seem to be flaring at the sight of us so I don't think it was the boat setup. The main problem we saw was that the birds were flying a mile high and would land in the open water amongst the coots. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to their landing pattern as it was changing from day to day. We had coots all around where we were hunting and the only shots we got were passing shots from birds trying to land out in the open water. We had to eventually turn to skybusting in order to drop a couple birds which goes against everything I've ever known about duck hunting. I am thinking of going back up there for one more hunt on the last weekend of the season. Any help on hunting these birds would be GREATLY appreciated as it's a long drive up there from Tampa. Thanks guys.

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