duckydoty

Thanks Phil. I could feel it in the force. Little bit slower on Taney this morning. Ducks must have found a safe zone and stuck with it. Not much flying around and my buddy and I only bagged 5 birds between us.

You are absolutely correct about the eats

JohnP there does seem to be fewer mallard this year than some other years. Can't complain too much though, especially if you compare this year to last year. Pretty good season so far in my opinion.

Sounds like you had another great adventure Marty! Must have been a sight to see.

Thanks Marty. Still looking forward to the rest of the story. To be continued I hope.

Jeremy Hunt has one of the new stealth craft boats and has owned another one for a few years. Hire him for a half day trip and take you out in his stealth craft to see how you like it. I have been in a few early models in Alaska. They have come a long way since then. Jeremy's boat looks sharp.

Layout boats are 8ft. Beavertail Final Attack boats. Big boat is bass tracker 185 sport jet.

Yup, it was bad!

I use a 35 lb trolling motor to propel the layout boat and a deep cycle marine battery. Today I travelled over 4 miles in it and it felt like it could go quite a bit more.

Thanks watermen.

Hunted the lower end close to Bull Creek. It is late for them little green wings. I was very surprised to see them.

Thanks guys. The layout boats have been a game changer!

Oh, yeah….Glad you finally got to get out and do some duck hunting Scott. I could tell you were jonesing bad yesterday….LOL

The trout were in the spread on Taney today also. One of these mornings, I'm gonna bring along the flyrod for the old cast and blast.

Had another fantastic hunt today. It was over quick and still had birds landing in my decoys after the limit was filled. Right about shooting time I must have had 100 birds in the decoys and around me. It took 3 minutes after shooting time for the first victim to come streaking in. 1st shot missed and second shot piled a nice little green wing drake up on the spread. The 100 or so birds took off and 2 of them swung back around and tried to land in the deeks again. Dropped a green head out of the pair. 10 minutes later had a group of 12 gaddys lock up and swing on in. Dropped two of them. A swing and 3 misses on the next bunch of birds and then a great shot on another crossing green wing drake and skerplush he went. Things settled down for a little bit and about 45 minutes later a huge flock of gaddys were fully committed. Picked the closest one and dropped it. Sat there for a few minutes just enjoying the rain and in comes 30 green wings and one shoveler to the decoys. They sat there whistling at me for a bit before taking off. The shoveler stuck around right at the end of the decoys and watched me pick up 4 or 5 of them before flying away.

Thanks Marty. It was a challenge!

Your hammering them Marty! Awesome!

Brother Dave's 2 hp mud motor. Works great and will be an upgrade next year for sure for me and DD'sMC.

Ok, I think I got the video to upload and linked properly now. http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=em-upload_owner&v=NKeY2152_jY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DNKeY2152_jY%26feature%3Dem-upload_owner

This is the 1st day in 8 days that I have not hunted so I got a little time to update you all on how it has been. Opening week was ok on Lake Taneycomo. A buddy of mine, his son, and I got out on lower Taney for opening morning. We scouted the day before and found ok numbers of birds from Cocklebur Cove on down. We set up on the main lake about 1/2 mile down from Cocklebur Cove and used the big boat to tow 2 layout boats. Once decoys were deployed I anchored big boat across lake and putted back across to the hunting spot in the 8 ft. Beavertail Final Attack layout boat to begin the hunt. All this took a little longer than expected, so we were ready to hunt about 10 minutes after shooting time. I ended up with 5 birds. The boy got 1st shot and killed 1st bird of the 2013-2014 season, and his dad had gun issues and just helped the son hunt. Decided it was too much work to tow layouts and a little dangerous. They wanted to torpedo under the water at speeds any faster than an idle. No more towing for me. Got to take DD'sMC out on one of the warmer days for her 1st hunt of the season up in the Bull Creek area of Lake Taneycomo. We just launched layout boats from Rockaway Beach and motored on in. We each ended up with one bird. Since the snow storm, we have picked up a few more birds on Lake Taneycomo and the hunting has been pretty good. Water levels have been a key on deciding where to hunt. If they have been generating lots of water and the lake levels are high, the birds want to be back in the coves. If lake levels are low (below 708) the birds have been sticking to the main lake. Some of the coves are starting to freeze up and this is pushing more of the birds to the main lake too. While hunting the main lake, the birds are getting in the habit of landing in bigger water now and swimming to the shore. If you will just let them swim in and leave them alone, the next group that flies by will be more likely to come into the decoys. The birds are also responding less and less to calling everyday. At this point in time, with calling, less is more. Sundays hunt was my first limit of birds this year on Taney. The last 3 or 4 days, it has been 5 or 6 birds a day with some mallards in the mix. The mornings have been cold! Most of the action is done by 9:30 or 10. Once the birds find a safe spot, they pretty much stay there the rest of the day. My party has been splitting up and each one of us has been hunting a different location. This seems to bounce the birds around a little bit longer and all of us have been bagging more birds than if we would be as a group in the same spot. Being able to hide and not be seen has been a key issue for being successful. The little layout boats have been perfect for this. They just tuck right up next to the bank and hide with minimal effort. It has been a pretty good season so far in the south zone on Lake Taneycomo. Table Rock Lake has been a little tougher. Still not seeing the numbers of birds I would like and have not had as much success on the big lake. Even though all the ponds up north are frozen, Im getting reports there are still good numbers of ducks up that way. They still have lots of food and are sticking to the creeks and rivers. Another week of some cold weather and fronts coming through should give us some fresh birds to play with. This is up in the Bull Creek area on a warmer day DD'sMC waiting for her 1st bird to come in The rewards of the day Tooling along in the layout boat The day of the snow storm hunting on the Rock Things starting to pick up on Lake Taneycomo after the snow Another good morning of duck hunting on Taney Snow has started to melt along the shores of Lake Taneycomo and the snow suits are starting to stand out rather than blend in A cold morning spread The importance of being able to hide is critical! I had an epic cripple chase last week and uploaded a video to Facebook. Some of you could not view it, so I am now trying to upload it to youtube. If I am successful, I will link it to this post also.

Im trying to figure out how to upload it to youtube and link it in here now Marty.

That's why I took the knife

I do everything possible to retrieve cripples, but how far will you go?https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201885262231537&set=vb.1182992445&type=2&theater

Anyone and everyone is welcome to come. You do not have to bring anything, or you can bring what ever you like for a kind of "pot luck" meal. If you want to bring something, just list it on here so everyone else knows. Hope to see you there.

Duck and goose poppers as usual for me and DD'sMC. We will be there.