Bay Flats Lodge Harold Dworaczyk teaming up with longtime guests M. Lemke party.
I fell in love with duck hunting the very first moment I stepped into a blind at a very young age. Call it silly if you will, but there’s just something special about being out in the cold, wet, salty marsh on a dark winter morning that thrills me. To this day, I still do not think much can match the level of excitement I feel each time a shot opportunity arises. I can feel my heart pounding, and my pulse increasing. I can feel the blood rushing throughout my head and my body. My focus narrows on the inbound target, and my stomach feels as though it has suddenly filled with fluttering butterflies. These are all familiar feelings that anyone who has faced down an approaching flock of ducks from within their blind has felt at one time or another during the years that they have been hunting. But not everyone has had a chance to experience the rush of adrenaline that duck hunting can provide. But they can, because duck hunting is not hard to grasp for anyone who has the desire to do so.
I hunt with a lot of different people each hunting season, some of whom are novice hunters who are trying duck hunting for the very first time in their life. Most of these people continue to hunt today, and I’ve attempted to stay in touch with a lot of them over the years. It may sound funny, but I think I’ve shared one common conversation with most of them at some point in those years. Almost all of them left their first hunt with the misconception that duck hunting is easy. And it is. It’s easy from a learning perspective, but I can guarantee you won’t ever be at a loss for new things to notice and to realize. Duck hunting is much more than simply sitting in a duck blind with a shotgun in your lap while waiting for the ducks to fly overhead. It combines a bevy of preparation, equipment, and knowledge. Here are the basics.
In preparing for the beginning of duck season along the coastal regions of Texas, you can contact the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPW&D) to find out the rules and regulations, legal hunting methods, and the bag and possession limits. Once you have this information, you can go to almost any sporting goods store in order to purchase a Texas hunting license and required stamp(s), or you can order online directly from TPW&D if you’d like.
While duck hunting, you’re going to be around a lot of water that is more than likely going to be cold, so your next assignment needs to be to find the proper clothes for the challenge – waders, jacket, gloves. When temperatures drop and winds increase, things can get rather cold in a very short period of time, especially out in a duck blind. Choosing the right clothes to protect you from the elements can mean the difference between you being comfortable and miserable. Because you will be walking around in mud and marsh, you are going to need to invest in a pair of chest waders. A pair of neoprene waders will put you in one of the more popular materials used by wader manufacturers. Neoprene will keep you dry, and it will keep you warm. My preference, however, are a pair of lighter, more breathable waders that allow me to stay dry while I regulate how much warmth I need. If it is going to be really cold, I put on a pair of fleece pants before pulling on my waders. For additional protection from the wet and cold, I also recommend you buy a waterproof hunting jacket that has a removable liner inside of it for those warmer days that you may be hunting. Because we do walk through so much water when hunting along the coast, I always like my jacket to be about the length of a wading jacket. I’ve tried longer ones in the past, but always come back to the shorter lengths because they seem to be much more compact in size and they don’t get as wet when wading through water. And, because of the water, you will also need to have some warm gloves on your hands, especially if you are the one tossing decoys prior to sunrise. If you get the neoprene gloves, make sure they are insulated, as the neoprene alone will not always keep your hands and your wrists from freezing once they get wet.
Next, you will need a gun that can get the job done. A semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun is my weapon of choice. The size of the 12-gauge shell is definitely big enough to do what is being asked of it, and the semi-automatic action lets me volley a second and a third shot very rapidly when needed. For beginners and younger duck shooters, I might recommend the use of a 20-gauge shotgun until you get the feel for shooting at the ducks. It will be a lighter gun, and consequently will be more gracious with regards to recoil and so forth. You’ll be able to hit the birds that are landing directly in your decoys, but don’t look to make the long shots, and don’t expect to knock a goose out the sky, as a 20-gauge is simply too light of a weapon for large or long-range ducks and geese. Another topic for consideration while gun shopping is chokes. Chokes intentionally narrow the muzzle of the gun barrel which, in turn, controls the size and the density of the shotgun shell pellet pattern. If you expect you will be mostly shooting ducks that will be setting down close-in by the decoys, then you may opt for the use of an improved cylinder, which provides a much wider shell pellet pattern. On the other hand, if you’re looking to having to make some of those longer range shots, you may consider a full choke which will produce a much tighter pattern. For everything in between a close-up shot and a long range shot, a modified choke will probably fit the bill. These differing chokes that hunters can screw into the end of their shotgun barrel are really nice because they allow the hunter to be able to use the same gun for different ranges and for a wider variety of different bird species.
Once you settle on which gun you prefer, the next thing you will be faced with is making a decision as to which shells to buy for your duck hunting needs. Making the selection of the right shotgun shell for duck hunting is as important as you having the right shotgun. Lead shot is no longer allowed, so most hunters shoot steel shot today, although there are other choices besides steel out on the market that include such materials as bismuth, tungsten and a various array of other alloys. Steel is the most common because of its cost, but some of the more avid hunters simply won’t think of shooting anything other than bismuth or tungsten. You’ll be better able to make your shotgun shell decision as you spend more time with your gun and discovering what tends to work best for you based upon your gun, your chokes, the distance you are normally required to shoot, and the size and type of your primary target. Examining variances between different type shells can be fun and interesting, and the effort of doing so can pay off significantly whenever you find yourself in different situations throughout the course of the season. You may also like to spend a little bit of time at a gun range, or with a friend who can toss some skeet or sporting clays for you, in order to allow you to sharpen some of your shooting skills before the season starts, or as a general practice throughout the course of the entire year.
As you can see, there are a lot of things one needs to try to learn about the sport of duck hunting. I could continue to go into detail about such things as the need for you to be able to properly identify the ducks before shooting at them, the importance for proper camouflage and concealment, the use of a dog when duck hunting, and the strategies and tactics behind proper use and placement of duck decoys. But instead of trying to fill your brain to the point of explosion, I believe I will instead just make one last recommendation to you, and that is that you may be better served by hunting with someone who knows about the ducks and how they operate. Whether it’s your grandfather, dad, uncle, brother, neighbor, friend, or a professional duck hunting guide, choosing someone as your duck hunting coach can help you with things like hunting locations, duck movements and feeding patterns, rules and regulations, and a myriad of other things that you can learn only from an experienced duck hunter. In the end, duck hunting is a great way to enjoy all that our Texas outdoors has to offer. If you’ve never tried it, maybe it’s time you did!
Wishing all of you a very safe and happy holiday season!
