Anyone wanting to talk about the great sport of waterfowling....post up and lets talk

As bad as I've seen it    Guess the modern duck hunter sees things a bit different that those that have shared the marsh with fellow fowlers for years........ I say that because we talk about deks, blinds, boats and all the other "stuff" waterfowlers talk about, but guess we"the older crowd" have not spent enough time talking about "the sporting thing to do".    

We have two modes of hunting here in Va. One is pretty confusing and I'll not dwell on that as it's carved in stone here in Va.  It's call blind laws.  It covers about 1/3 of the state and is enforceable by law.   The other is no blind laws and covers 2/3.    This is simply a "gentleman's aggreement" or first to the spot, get's it...so to speak.

This year we have had  TOO MANY fowlers showing up at legal shooting time( late for a fowler) and deciding to set up( floating blinds) too close to guys that have already set up. Some cases resulting in " hard feelings", Pis@&*^ matches or the first party simply having to move. Between the skybusting, loud talking and over calling, it makes for a long and unsuccessful day of gunning on your day off. The marsh is too too big for gunners to be setting on top of each other, both parties suffer in the long run...... and the only ones that win...are the ducks

Ducks are now out of season here in Va.

I'm depressed

Well, while I've never really flipped "off "the switch, it's time to be thinking Fowl thoughts!   We are starting to scout the goose fields and getting all the river blinds tidded up for the upcoming year.  Time to get busy and I for one am sittin on ready

Our resident geese are just starting to move around so, big thing I look for  now is water. A good old farm pond is hard to beat. with the crops not being cut..at this point they will be spending a lot of time around the egdes of the ponds. I'll look for feathers and droppings at the ponds and then in the fields too. As the crops are cut they will venture feather and feather from their roost and thn a good set of bo-nics are a big help.

Well, Our State waterfowl org. ( Vawfa) held a waterfowl workshop this past Sat. at a local shooting complex. We had several instructors from our state game department. They held the clinic on shooting/gun safety and waterfowl ID. In addition to them we had the current state duck calling champion and Jack Reese,a RNT pro staffer handling the duck calling.  I'm pleased to say my guys at Webfoot Mafia held the clinic on gose calling.   After  3 1/2 hr of instruction, everyone got together for a cookout.   It was a great way to spend a hot Sat. in July

Yea, lots of door knocking....and you have to get a lot of no's before you get a yes...at least in these parts