rice field hunting

[Anatidae]

Andy - that was the best explanation of the spiral approach phenomenonemom I've ever read. Having hunted in Canada and witnessed duck tornados and such, it's a lot easier to see how this knowlodege could help the hunter become more successful. It works best when you have and minimum of 10K ducks in any given 2 square miles.......(and of course, no heavy concentration of osprey or bald eagles.)

[Damn_It_Boy]

I did a little math on this one..........I would take a 900 acre fully flooded field with a blind centered in the SE quadrant, and 935,000 decoys to make this work. But....it will work.........

[duckdigler]

Hunt the rice specific to the ducks you want shoot: white rice for American ducks, yellow rice for hispanic ducks, fried rice for Asian ducks, brown rice for African ducks and don't forget long grained rice for well endowed drakes.

[talk2me suzy]

some ppl should quit hunting and take up comedy.

[70 sprig]

some ppl should quit hunting and take up comedy.

There once was a girl from nantucket ...........

[duckhunter1963]

i think you need 12 more dozen decoys, and i would also use cover scent so that the ducks will not smell me. also, 10 more robos would not hurt at all. last, but not least, keep the duck call in your mouth and blow nonstop. good luck. if that does not work, try adding another 6 dozen decoys.

[jkb87]

2 possible explanations...

1. You say 4 dozen decoys and 4 mojos were used, some ducks don't take to an even numbered spread. Next time try 13, 27, 35, or 41 ect.

2. The mojos might've been spinning the wrong direction, if the birds are coming from the West your EDMs(electronic duck magnets) need to have their wings spinning in a clockwise fashion, if flock is flying from the East a counterclockwise motion is recommended.

my $.02

870,
ive found that usually, ducks work better when you put out a number of decoys that can be divided by 13. yes, its unlucky, but overall, it does the job.

[talk2me suzy]

some true clowns here

[Denduke]

You might try some of old Benny the Beaver's technigues....

The food source angle...maybe you should spell out R-I-C-E instead though....


And of course you could play the sex card...




Few drake heads I picked out this AM...with the implied differential principle...or was it Fudds Law....
Ah,ah....never mind the duck tape on the ole A5 Mag.

[ewd506]

If you can always have one of your buddies out back pissing, that always seems to bring them in.

[mudsucker]

some ppl should quit hunting and take up comedy.

There once was a girl from nantucket ...........

and SHE had a d!ck so long that SHE could suck it?

[GordonGekko]

me and some buddies of mine were rice field hunting a couple of days ago with four dozen decoys and four mojos and the ducks wouldnt come to the decoys at all. we saw thousands of ducks but none would work us. any ideas why they wouldnt?

I hope this doesn't sound too harsh, but it sounds like like you may not get to hunt fields too often. If it pisses you off skip to the last line for a summary of what I suggest. There could be a thousand reasons they didn't work your spot, but over years of hunting them I have found a few good starting points for setups, but those took me years and years to figure out and I'm still learning new things every year either by trial and error or from those who have been hunting them since before I was born. Also, birds work differently in a field and sometimes you have to keep their attention with a call, but others the best thing you can do once they spot the decoys is to shut up (you have to learn to read their body language).

That being said, four dozen is pretty light for a field setup, but I've done well with that few decoys (particularly the Super Mag sized dekes). I don't use a robo so no advice there (except maybe try taking them down but I will try to keep this civil). The more I hunt fields and open spots the bigger my decoys seem to be getting.

But, no matter how good your setup is some days the birds just aren't very interested in your spot...and not all spots are created equal. Some pits tend to run hot and cold and some are more consistent. So don't take it too personally.

I know this is vague as all get out, but there is no simple answer...except hard work and there are no shortcuts to learning through trial and error.

In short, keep track of weather patterns to see how they affect your hunt and try something different (preferably only change one thing) with your setup next time and see if that helps.

[SoftCall]

There is a naturally occurring ratio that exists and occurs in the world. It was first discovered back in the 11th century by the Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci.

When deploying that many robo ducks it important to give consideration to this golden ratio from nature. A couple of others here have suggested it, but I don't think they are giving you the strait talk on the golden ratio taken from nature. I'm not calling them out specifically, because they may not fully understand the ratio, and how it occurs in nature. I suppose it's possible too, that they may be giving you bad information which would only result in failure. Surely no one here would do that?

Take a look at this spiral pattern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fibon ... ral_34.svg

If you've ever spent hours watching snow geese accumulate in a field, you'll notice that they always create this pattern. Sure, it does tend to vary based on the contour of the land they are congregating in, but this pattern is always present and can be calculated. This pattern of birds feeding does tend to get distorted as the morning grows on, as more groups of birds come in to the flock, but that initial landing does tend to stick to this pattern. I can assure you that waterfowl do recognize it. Sadly, I don't think that many duck hunters have ever known, or understood this, because we're basically programed to throw out decoys and shoot whatever stragglers happen to come in.

You need to understand how that natural spiral pattern is formed, and overlay the end of the pattern upwind, and downwind of where your blind is located. That means you may have battery powered twirlies in front of you, behind you, to your left, and to your right. Depending on the wind, of course! To keep things simple, it's best to start out you hunting in a precision leveled field, so that you won't have to distort the spiral based on the contour of the land. From this point forward, I'm going to give instructions based on the assumption that you're hunting in a leveled field or over water, which is always flat.

The most important part. How do you go about determine the when to form the end of the pattern? That's dependent on the number of robo's and regular decoys you have on hand. You can virtually do this with any number of decoys. If it's a high wind, for best results, you need to keep your decoys tied off tightly to keep them from drifting in and out of formation. But that could be best saved for another topic. Back to the formation.

The formula is as follows: The first number of the sequence is 0, the second number is 1, and each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers of the sequence itself. So in your case, since your decoys total in number of 48. Placing them is as easy as pi. I have found that I have best results when I place the origin point of the spiral at approximately 45 degrees to the wind, and in front of me. (This means in front of you, and to your left) By doing so, you will also be able to maintain the clockwise rotation that ducks like to follow when making their final approach. But that too, is best saved for another subject.

Since the first number in the formula is zero, and you can't put out zero decoys, you'll have no choice but start with putting out at least one deke. If you have 50 or more decoys to put out, start with two dekes. For 100 or more decoys, start with three dekes. You may confidently put out your decoys using this sequence using any number of decoys you happen to have on hand. Then begin forming the spiral. Always place the next group of decoys from the number sequence in a counter-clockwise formation while beginning at the end which is 90 degrees opposite end of the previous placement. Imagine that each group of dekes represents a square. Remember that from this example, we're assuming that initial decoy placement being 45 degrees off of the wind. For the next group from this example, drop downwind approximately 1/4 the size of the initial square. For the next group, same thing. 90 degrees opposite end, and continue this ever growing sequence until all your decoys have been place. If everything has been calculated correctly, you should end up with the last grouping of decoys placed (not exceeding the approximate mid-point of the total area of the decoy spread) in front of your position, which should create the natural landing zone, that all flocking birds are programmed to seek out.

When using robo ducks, I have found that best results are had when keep them as close to the origin point as possible. Substitute one robo-duck for one regular decoy in each successive natural sequence of decoys being place out. I like to keep them near the origin of the spiral pattern because we all should know by now, that live ducks generally do not land right over the top of these gadgets. If you've placed them around the point of origin using this wind example, The approaching ducks should come right past them, directly into the wind, which should be directly at your position.

You can also use this technique with different variations of wind degree for that initial decoy placement, which could be especially useful when specific hunting terrains dictate that the blind will have to be placed in such a manner that wind is not at your back. This means you can engineer this decoy placement to have the ducks approach from your left or right. You can also do this with the wind in your face, and have the ducks approach from behind, but I would caution that this can be very unpredictable, and should only be performed by experience hunters.

Good luck with this. I'm not going to be available by private message for additional help for the remainder of this season, but I am sure there are some other guys here who are much smarter than I am that would be glad to help with this.

OK - now I have actually seen this in action and I am 100% CONFIDENT that this will fix any problem. I was going to throw a ratio out until I scrolled down a read this solid piece of documented decoying prowess. Obviously you still carry that HP 10B around with you in the boat or four wheeler for these situations requiring such detailed calculation. Ahoy I say and glasses up for going to eleven once again.

So exactly how much water will a 1448 boat displace with a 15 horse, 7 dozen weighted keel dekes, 2 hunters of average weight in waders, one dog (healthy), one dozen left over tamales, a portable grill, pork chops (seasoned), a gallon of petrol, 8 boxes of shells, possibles, a q-beam, two life jackets, a paddle, and a modified scissor pop up blind with the wind skirt and fast grass?

[talk2me suzy]

thanks guys i used all of yalls brilliant advice this morning and even used the cover scent and our group killed 54.

[mudsucker]

thanks guys i used all of yalls brilliant advice this morning and even used the cover scent and our group killed 54.

Where you with the girl from Nantucket? In the rice? With a hammer?