What was your first duck hunt?

[Runnin' 87]

All this nostalgia flying around.

Mine was in Nome, Texas withy dad. I was the five year old bird boy running across the rice field

[BlueGoose]

Just a little southeast of Tokio, TX. I hated it. It was cold and spitting snow and all I had on was a flannel shirt. Saw no ducks. Buddies talked me into trying it again and it was a much better experience. Shot my first duck, a pintail drake. I see that bird every day. I'm so glad I went back to try it again, as I've been hooked on waterfowl hunting in one form or another since.

[reacher]

1978 at 16 standing about 100yds off the bank in alley creek in the open trying to shoot bluewings in blue jeans and shoes lol. Don't tell anyone

[aTm8]

Probably around the year 2000. Hunter with Duck Fisher outside eagle lake opening morning of teal season. To say that it was a smoke show would be an understatement.

[SEDGE]

1981
Top end Cedar Creek
12ft Jon boat out of station wagon and into Kings Creek at bridge crossing
Qbeam river ride in the dark
Motor out into as much smartweed as I'll ever see...
Yentzen Sure Shot in hand
Old man calling us all Shit Bird
Each time we wiffed..."Throw your gun at em Shit Bird"


HOOKED for LIFE

[maxx]

I don't remember my first actual duck hunt. I would have been really young. My dad dragged my sister and I all over the state of WI hunting and fishing when we were really young. A lot of the time I remember hating it and I often laugh that I love this shit so much in spite of that.

The first time I hunted was 1989. It would have been right around I would have just turned 12 (legal age to hunt in WI). We duck hunted a lot but we were not great duck hunters. What do I mean by that. We never used a decoys, calls and we didn't have a dog. We did have good spots and we shot a lot of birds based on having really good spots. Opening day was always on the Mississippi river just south of Lacrosse, WI. There was an island we would camp on each year. Get there Friday morning set up camp and hunt Saturday and Sunday. It was a group of 10-15 dudes. You could take your boats to other small islands and hunt, my dad and I would just walk around to the back side of the island and hunt. It was warm and you just need knee boots.

I don't know the real numbers but I am pretty sure I was 3-4 boxes deep and it was Sunday morning and zero birds were harmed. We were getting ready to pack up camp and head out when a loner wood duck came flying over, I raised up and stone cold killed it dead, before it hit the ground I turned to my dad who was 40-50 yards away and gave him a fist pump or some other shit completely forgetting to watch where the bird fell. Safe to say I looked for that duck for 45 minutes and never found it.

I think I finally killed my first bird the next week by my grandparents place.

[Elpatoloco]

1970 somethin, red river. Everyone shot only sprigs to get to 100. I was armed with my grandfather's trusty Crescent brand .410. Its old enough to not have serial numbers. It kilt a few birds

[Quackerbox]

I dont remember the actual hunt but it was in or around east matagorda bay. Circa 1983ish? I do remember my dad duct taping those cheap rubber stocking foot waders to my legs since there was no such thing as kid waders. Then he tied some chuck Ts to my feet so tight Im surprised I didnt lose circulation.

I also remember loosing a shoe and taking a shot at a duck in big boggy and the recoil of a single shot 20 rolled me over the burlap sack of decoys I was sitting on filling my waders with marsh water.

[Hiwood]

1980 Niederwald TX, I shot a gadwall drake for my first bird. I was hunting with my brother's friend Dan Papp who came up from La Porte to take me hunting, he tripled on pintails right in front of me using his old Auto 5, he had a black lab named Cisco who was a littermate to our dog Rex, shot my first pintail the next day, and my first mallard drake a week later

[Swing]

Waxahachie, dont remember the year. Me and my buddy jumped some ponds on his property with single shot 12's. My first kill was a nice pintail drake. The one thing i'll always remember is that he had a 3 legged lab who was a retrieving MF'er. She was hell on the dove too.

[El Pollo Loco]

Mine would’ve been somewhere around ‘92 or ‘93. My neighbors hunted a place in the marsh right across the Sabine from us in Louisiana. It was a cold morning (for SETX/SWLA) with ice covering the boat. We headed out for the short boat ride, parked in the bank of the intracoastal and then started the trek through the marsh to a blind on the island. I was wearing some man sized hip boots and was only just a small kid. On the way the island I came out of both boots in that nasty, bottomless marsh mud. Made it to the island with socks halfway off and mud in places mud shouldn’t be, but I was ready for some ducks. With no water in the marsh (north wind empties out marshes down here) the birds wanted nothing to do with our spot. I can remember watching birds turn to their calls, only to circle once and decide super quick that they’d rather land where there was water. In the end no ducks were harmed, but I caught a bit of a hunting bug. It still took 2-3 years before I could convince my dad to start hunting (he was and still is an avid fisherman).

[jet black]

I was in college. Stock pond near Weimar in the fog. I was hooked.

[SEDGE]

Needed add to story:

Shotgun was a 12 gauge bolt action with magizine
I believe it was a Marlin and the barrel was long
Not 36" long, but I recall 32"
Clip ended up being a sacrifice to the Duck Gods when it kicked out of the receiver on shot (for the 300th time)

[Duckologist]

Needed add to story:

Shotgun was a 12 gauge bolt action with magizine
I believe it was a Marlin and the barrel was long
Not 36" long, but I recall 32"
Clip ended up being a sacrifice to the Duck Gods when it kicked out of the receiver on shot (for the 300th time)

Dey were 36" and light as feather

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[Perri]

Sometime around 1970. Aransas bay. My uncle lived in Port Aransas. I was around 12. I had a 20 ga Remington 1100. My uncle, my dad, and myself. We went to a blind in an airboat.

I got a widgeon, a pintail and a redhead.

Did not hunt waterfowl again until around 1987. Hit it hard then, most every day I was off work during the season I hunted. That lasted until around 2012.

Something changed then and our area of the state gets very few birds now.

Now I hunt geese in MN every September and hunt my duck blind a few times a year just checking to see if we have any ducks.