Resting rules

[redmondandmelvin]

Guys want your input on something. We have a no hunting after 12 policy on our lease. We lease a few hundred acers of flooded soy beans with two holes and 5 members. We have a few members who are trying to challenge this rule and feel they should be allowed to hunt in the afternoons also. We only hunt it on the weekends so it rests all week. Do yall think that hunting two full days of the week will have a impact on the number of birds we are holding. We are holding large numbers and have hunted one afternoon and it did not seem to make a huge impact. I am of the opinion that this late in the season it probably does not matter but would like some insight.

[goosebruce]

Nothing burns a field faster than afternoon hunting. if they are getting here, or leaving, it doesnt matter. but if they're your birds your holding, pm shooting will run them off. if it sat for 5 days, and then you only hunted on the weekends, I dont itd matter that much, but if its getting hunted during the week, no afternoons.

ice makes all rules go away. kill them when you can. travis

[Doc & Nash]

If you holding that many birds why are yall not getting your limits in the morning?

[GulfCoast]

From painful (Webfoot) experiance as to a place that consistently produces birds: Don't. Do. It.

Lease another el cheapo hole just to shoot in the afternoon on weekends if you need a few more birds to fill your limit for the day.

[DUCKAHOLIC]

If you holding that many birds why are yall not getting your limits in the morning?

HELLO

[Doc & Nash]

Nothing burns a field faster than afternoon hunting. if they are getting here, or leaving, it doesnt matter. but if they're your birds your holding, pm shooting will run them off.
travis

Rule #1 in Duck hunting..... I don't care where you are hunting or what your circumstance is, shooting the afternoon will only hurt in the long run. What kills me is some clubs do it because they think they only have birds in the afternoon..... All it would take is a year of not hunting the afternoon and they would have jam up hunting everyday...

[Duct-Up]

In the context in which you are speaking of it probably will not hurt to shoot in the afternoon right now if you didn't get your limit in the a.m. The club I hunt in has the same 12 o'clock rule and it has been in place for the last 17 years we just feel it is the right thing to do. With that being said there have been times when we didn't fill our limits in the morning that it have been awful tempting to try and fill them in the p.m. but as of yet we have not done that. There have also been times when we arrive at the hole in the afternoon and ducks are there and we haven't shot them. Typically we have been able the next a.m. to get our limits filled. We consistenly kill ducks using this rule so I think it works, however there are always exceptions but you will do better in the long run by sticking with that rule rather than breaking or bending it. Just my $.02

[quack_a_tack]

I will tell you this I hunt a club in Arkieland, that up until four years ago hunted morning only. They had a bunch of gamehogs come in and demanded to be able to hunt in the afternoon (money talks). We use to consistantly kill ducks in the morning if not full limits at least a good number of birds. Since afternoon hunting has been allowed the quality and consistancy of ducks killed has gone way down. I talked with an old farmer I hunt with on his property and in 56 years he has not allowed an afternoon hunt but once. He said he and some friends shot the piss out of them, the next year though no ducks used that field, seemed almost as though the ducks remembered getting run off the roost. This could have just been an old man talkin though, but we kill alot more there than in Ark.

[britlab]

I will hunt afternoons only on the correct moon phase. I am a firm believer that ducks (especially migrating birds) follow the moon phase and their behavior and feeding/roosting patterns are greatly affected by it. For example if there is a waxing moon and thus no moon at night the ducks will typically roost in deeper water but head for fields to feed at first light. On the other end of the spectrum if it is a full moon that rises early in the evening/afternoon the ducks will typically feed all night in a field and in the morning head to a roosting area. In the full moon situation, if you go out to the field before first light you will bust the birds off the hole. Yes a few will come back, but most will head to a roosting area. But if you let them depart on their own after first light and then go in mid morning, birds will trickle back in. In this situation we will come in after the birds leave and try to be out by 2 or 3 and thus leaving in time for the bigger flights of birds to come in late evening and feed under the full moon. Just my .02 cents and with that and $6 you can go to starbucks and get a cup of coffee.

[Doc & Nash]

I will hunt afternoons only on the correct moon phase. I am a firm believer that ducks (especially migrating birds) follow the moon phase and their behavior and feeding/roosting patterns are greatly affected by it. For example if there is a waxing moon and thus no moon at night the ducks will typically roost in deeper water but head for fields to feed at first light. On the other end of the spectrum if it is a full moon that rises early in the evening/afternoon the ducks will typically feed all night in a field and in the morning head to a roosting area. In the full moon situation, if you go out to the field before first light you will bust the birds off the hole. Yes a few will come back, but most will head to a roosting area. But if you let them depart on their own after first light and then go in mid morning, birds will trickle back in. In this situation we will come in after the birds leave and try to be out by 2 or 3 and thus leaving in time for the bigger flights of birds to come in late evening and feed under the full moon. Just my .02 cents and with that and $6 you can go to starbucks and get a cup of coffee.

I agree with you to the point that ducks feed by the moon, similar I think , to deer. Hunting the way you do still leaves several hours for them to get in to the hole in the evening.

[Jake St. John]

Ducks do become imprinted on a spot and we have never shot ducks in the afternoon. Here's a story on roost shooting but it applies to afternoon shooting as well as told by Jimmy Riddell.

Waterfowl Etiquette

Mr. Jimmy Ridell had a story about what the new age of waterfowlers call “TopwaterSlob Hunters". One was about a group of roost shooters and the other was a move on in type of topwater. If you ever listened to one of Mr. Jimmy’s duck hunting stories, you learned valuable insight into the sport of duck hunting.

I guess he hated a roost shooter worse than any type of hunter. He harped on the fact that a roost shooter was just that, a shooter. He did not take the time to learn how to call to feeding or resting ducks. His method of hunting was simply to go into a place where the ducks came in just before dark and shoot till you could not see anymore. He always said if you shoot um on the roost, they don’t come back. If you shoot in the A.M or late A.M. you still give them time to loaf in the afternoon before they go back out to feed. Mr. Jimmy told a story about a group of roost shooters that started coming into the resting area that he was hunting. About the time they had finished their morning hunt and were heading out , there were a group of hunters in two boats headed into the marsh. The ducks had quite flying and were already down to rest. Jimmy said he could see them stringing up toilet paper in the button willows to find their way out after dark. He said where the ducks usually rested was way out in the middle of the marsh. After they had gone by and were out of sight. He said he picked up the toilet paper for a good 200 yards leading in and re-strung it directly due South into the thickest part of marsh. He then proceeded back to Jackson. The next day, they had their usual hunt and stopped by the farmers house on the edge of the marsh, where they had access, to see what happened to the roost shooters. The local farmer told Mr. Jimmy that he could hear whooping, hollering, and even 3 gun blasts every once in a while ALL NIGHT LONG. He said just before daylight he heard their truck crank up and leave. Mr. Jimmy said it must have been some night for those fellows, as it got down close to freezing. “Serves um right” he said.

[LawDawg]

Ducks do become imprinted on a spot and we have never shot ducks in the afternoon. Here's a story on roost shooting but it applies to afternoon shooting as well as told by Jimmy Riddell.

Waterfowl Etiquette

Mr. Jimmy Ridell had a story about what the new age of waterfowlers call “TopwaterSlob Hunters". One was about a group of roost shooters and the other was a move on in type of topwater. If you ever listened to one of Mr. Jimmy’s duck hunting stories, you learned valuable insight into the sport of duck hunting.

I guess he hated a roost shooter worse than any type of hunter. He harped on the fact that a roost shooter was just that, a shooter. He did not take the time to learn how to call to feeding or resting ducks. His method of hunting was simply to go into a place where the ducks came in just before dark and shoot till you could not see anymore. He always said if you shoot um on the roost, they don’t come back. If you shoot in the A.M or late A.M. you still give them time to loaf in the afternoon before they go back out to feed. Mr. Jimmy told a story about a group of roost shooters that started coming into the resting area that he was hunting. About the time they had finished their morning hunt and were heading out , there were a group of hunters in two boats headed into the marsh. The ducks had quite flying and were already down to rest. Jimmy said he could see them stringing up toilet paper in the button willows to find their way out after dark. He said where the ducks usually rested was way out in the middle of the marsh. After they had gone by and were out of sight. He said he picked up the toilet paper for a good 200 yards leading in and re-strung it directly due South into the thickest part of marsh. He then proceeded back to Jackson. The next day, they had their usual hunt and stopped by the farmers house on the edge of the marsh, where they had access, to see what happened to the roost shooters. The local farmer told Mr. Jimmy that he could hear whooping, hollering, and even 3 gun blasts every once in a while ALL NIGHT LONG. He said just before daylight he heard their truck crank up and leave. Mr. Jimmy said it must have been some night for those fellows, as it got down close to freezing. “Serves um right” he said.

That's about right. I love it.

[Wildfowler]

If you have a legitimate roosting area. A place where the ducks come in 30 minutes to 1 hour after dark in massive number. A place where the ducks fly out in massive numbers in when you try to hunt in the morning, only to not return during the morning's hunt, then I would say you can safely hunt this in the afternoon. Hunting in the afternoon in such an example is not going to hurt anything. Some of the ducks will trickle in early, and as long as you don't shoot the "source", as long as you're long gone from the area by the end of legal shooting time, you shouldn't hurt anything.

I was in a lease where one of our fields were just such a roosting area. It got hunted three or four afternoons a week the entire season without any problems. In general though, many leases are not true roosting holes, and shooting them in the afternoon will devastate them as others have said.

Our field was mainly a coffee weed field, and when the Coldwater stayed out for an extended period, the ducks would roost in our field and in our surrounding area. Water was about waste deep. I'm not in that lease anymore. Landowner was too difficult to deal with.

Good luck.

[Locked Up]

+ 1,000,000

Ducks do become imprinted on a spot and we have never shot ducks in the afternoon. Here's a story on roost shooting but it applies to afternoon shooting as well as told by Jimmy Riddell.

Waterfowl Etiquette

Mr. Jimmy Ridell had a story about what the new age of waterfowlers call “TopwaterSlob Hunters". One was about a group of roost shooters and the other was a move on in type of topwater. If you ever listened to one of Mr. Jimmy’s duck hunting stories, you learned valuable insight into the sport of duck hunting.

I guess he hated a roost shooter worse than any type of hunter. He harped on the fact that a roost shooter was just that, a shooter. He did not take the time to learn how to call to feeding or resting ducks. His method of hunting was simply to go into a place where the ducks came in just before dark and shoot till you could not see anymore. He always said if you shoot um on the roost, they don’t come back. If you shoot in the A.M or late A.M. you still give them time to loaf in the afternoon before they go back out to feed. Mr. Jimmy told a story about a group of roost shooters that started coming into the resting area that he was hunting. About the time they had finished their morning hunt and were heading out , there were a group of hunters in two boats headed into the marsh. The ducks had quite flying and were already down to rest. Jimmy said he could see them stringing up toilet paper in the button willows to find their way out after dark. He said where the ducks usually rested was way out in the middle of the marsh. After they had gone by and were out of sight. He said he picked up the toilet paper for a good 200 yards leading in and re-strung it directly due South into the thickest part of marsh. He then proceeded back to Jackson. The next day, they had their usual hunt and stopped by the farmers house on the edge of the marsh, where they had access, to see what happened to the roost shooters. The local farmer told Mr. Jimmy that he could hear whooping, hollering, and even 3 gun blasts every once in a while ALL NIGHT LONG. He said just before daylight he heard their truck crank up and leave. Mr. Jimmy said it must have been some night for those fellows, as it got down close to freezing. “Serves um right” he said.

[Locked Up]

+ 1,000,000

Ducks do become imprinted on a spot and we have never shot ducks in the afternoon. Here's a story on roost shooting but it applies to afternoon shooting as well as told by Jimmy Riddell.

Waterfowl Etiquette

Mr. Jimmy Ridell had a story about what the new age of waterfowlers call “TopwaterSlob Hunters". One was about a group of roost shooters and the other was a move on in type of topwater. If you ever listened to one of Mr. Jimmy’s duck hunting stories, you learned valuable insight into the sport of duck hunting.

I guess he hated a roost shooter worse than any type of hunter. He harped on the fact that a roost shooter was just that, a shooter. He did not take the time to learn how to call to feeding or resting ducks. His method of hunting was simply to go into a place where the ducks came in just before dark and shoot till you could not see anymore. He always said if you shoot um on the roost, they don’t come back. If you shoot in the A.M or late A.M. you still give them time to loaf in the afternoon before they go back out to feed. Mr. Jimmy told a story about a group of roost shooters that started coming into the resting area that he was hunting. About the time they had finished their morning hunt and were heading out , there were a group of hunters in two boats headed into the marsh. The ducks had quite flying and were already down to rest. Jimmy said he could see them stringing up toilet paper in the button willows to find their way out after dark. He said where the ducks usually rested was way out in the middle of the marsh. After they had gone by and were out of sight. He said he picked up the toilet paper for a good 200 yards leading in and re-strung it directly due South into the thickest part of marsh. He then proceeded back to Jackson. The next day, they had their usual hunt and stopped by the farmers house on the edge of the marsh, where they had access, to see what happened to the roost shooters. The local farmer told Mr. Jimmy that he could hear whooping, hollering, and even 3 gun blasts every once in a while ALL NIGHT LONG. He said just before daylight he heard their truck crank up and leave. Mr. Jimmy said it must have been some night for those fellows, as it got down close to freezing. “Serves um right” he said.