[Uncle Russ]

O.K. About a year ago, I bought a $90.00 standup rod from Cabelas and a single-speed 665W just to get $150.00 off my next purchase, and came on this board for a little advice and you people are now personally responsible for my offshore addiction and tackle obsession. So my next mistake is going to be asking you for advice on hunting the coast when I get down to Rockport in a year or so:

Question 1: Can anyone give me an example of how you build one of the duck blinds out in the water in the shallows? I have seen many but never looked at one closely. How do you get the posts down in the water so they don't float up?

Question 2: If I have a flats boat that is pure white, with a center console and a really tall poling platform and a smaller casting platform in front, do I have a prayer in hell of making it into a duck boat using camo? How disguised does it have to be? I have had a couple of people tell me you can sit on a white boat and ducks will decoy right in. I find that hard to believe, though.

Quesiton 3: Do you hunt mainly divers or puddle ducks at the coast?

Question 4: I have been goose hunting only once. Couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a shovel, and after tasting the goose, I nearly puked my guts out. But I loved it. So I want to hunt geese, but being as much of a gun ho as I am a tackle ho, now, I can't afford to pay for it too often. So, the question is, do geese ever decoy in over the water, say around Aransas or Copano Bay, or do you absolutely have to hunt them on land over to the east?

Now the incentive for anyone who is kind enough to help old Uncle Russ out, is that I am perfectly willing to give any and all waterfowl I ever manage to kill after my retirement, to anyone who lives nearby.

Thanks,

Russ

 

[Bret]

Russ, I grew up in that area.. and had several friends that were duck and goose guides..
#1. The blinds are pretty simple. a crude platform. Maybe 4'x8' built from 4x4 legs and 2x4 frame and plywood floor.. The walls are just light built frame 2X2 cover them up with baybrush(sweet bayleaf tree) available all over the area or palm fronds. Leave one end open for entry..
#2 White flats boat as a blind. Doubtfull it would have the ducks fogging in without some serious cammo webbing .. etc. Its probably doable, but I dont think it would be real effective..
#3 We had both divers and puddle jumper.. lots of pintails, widgeons, redheads...(Its been 25yrs since I duck hunted down there)
#4 Goose cooked properly is much better than duck.. IMO.. There were some rare occasions where we duck hunted and had geese deke in on us..
But there are some really good hunting areas near rockport.. up north near Austwell, over by bayside, woodsboro.. There is lots of farm land.. We used to wreak havoc on those poor geese back in the day...

I hope this info helps... (even though is pretty outdated)

 

[SpecialK]

Russ,
Getting the post in the water is not that hard but I would hire a day laborer(we have other names but its a publiic forum) if you take a 8 inch pipe, 4x4 posts, an external high power bildge pump its easy.
Push the pipe to the ground and run the bildge pump hose to the bottom of it. Stick in the post, turn on the pump and start sledging it down.
The pump will help kick up a lot of the dirt while you sledge.
After you get the post set its just like building a tree house. Do get too carried away with the camo. A buddy of mine and I hunt Poco sometimes. We just take an extra bag of decoys and wire them to the blind....
Hope this helps.
BTW duck tastes like dirt...

 

[Pope]

PM sent

 

[Uncle Russ]

Thanks, guys.

Bret: I kind of figured that about the boat. Not saying waterfowl can't taste good, but about the only way I would ever become a vegetarian is if I had to eat it very often.

SpecialK: I know what you mean about jetting the posts in. We built a cabin down on Matagorda Peninsula by pumping water up from the bay about 15 feet up a sand bluff there by the Big Jetties and around a hundred feet to the building site: put in 9 telephone poles sunk nearly 10 feet into the sand and shell. Brutal, but it works great. My worries centered around a dock we also built with jetted 4X4's. It eventually floated out and away--although admittedly it took a tropical storm to finish it off and it was on one of the most exposed shorelines to huge blue northers (about 3 miles from where LaSalle's ship bit the bottom 400 years ago.

I am definitely looking forward to it although unless my wing-shooting improves, the quackers aren't going to suffer much.

Russ

 

[SpecialK]

Thanks, guys.


I am definitely looking forward to it although unless my wing-shooting improves, the quackers aren't going to suffer much.

Russ
HAHA
Maybe you should invest in a reloading kit. At least that way you can save some $$ shells.
Honestly I have been duck hunting every year for about the last 10... I still think I suck...But I am much better than everyone I hunt with including the old man, who taught me...haha

 

[Ross]

Uncle Russ,

We will hook up for a hunt or two down that way next year. I'm in San Antonio now, so the drive isn't too far for me.

While the coastal duck hunting is not my favorite, I can show you quite a bit. The main ducks in that are are Redheads, Pintail, Bluebills, Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, and Spoonies.

I wouldn't worry about the camo job on the boat. Just park it far enough away and walk to the blind.

As far as building a blind like you see out in the bay, I personally wouldn't waste my time doing that. Pretty much all you will shoot out of those blinds, except for early in the season, are Redheads and Bluebills. The puddle ducks get very wary of those things and there are better areas to shoot the puddle ducks.

 

[Uncle Russ]

SpecialK: I used to be a reloading fool with rifle cartridges but somehow fell out of it. I probably do need to start it if I am going to get serious with a shotgun. I mentioned my one goose hunt. I went with a bunch of guys who do it a lot. I used my Mossberg 835-Ulti Mag and went through a couple of boxes of 3 inch and 3 1/2 inch shells (steel-not the exotic stuff ) Our party got a whole load of geese, and every once in a while I called out that I was pretty sure I had hit one. Everyone told me I had missed and I believed them. The funny thing is: How can you miss something that looks like a fleet of Airbuses getting ready to land on top of you?

Ross: That is very generous of you and an offer I will most definitely take you up on, and will help with expenses and buy you a steak in the bargain. Are we talking about public land out in the bay?

I'll tell you all a funny story: When I was scouting around my future home down in Rockport about 2 weeks ago, I saw a hunting club on St. Charles Bay, right by Big Tree, which I used to climb in as a child when it was a lot smaller. As a really wierd coincidence, turned out that it was called the St. Charles Bay Hunting Club. Now I got a little bit sassy a few weeks ago and bought the gun I had dreamed about over a Sears and Roebuck catalog when I was 12 years old-a Winchester Model 21 Tournament Grade in immaculate shape. 28 inch barrels with 2 3/4 inch chambers choked modified/full. So I have been feeling quite the well-heeled gentleman lately, and after my trip to the coast, my wife encouraged me to inquire about joining. In the back of my mind, I knew the chances of that, but I looked them up on the internet, found out they were founded in 1923, and gave a call to the Membership Chairman. I knew from the Houston area code it was going to be expensive. I mean, after all, if the guy could afford gas from Houston and shells too, he was probably out of my league. But I glanced over at the Model 21 leaning in the corner of my gun room (in the corner of my garage) for reassurance, and figured what the hell.

The guy was extremely nice and explained that the initiation fee, if you found a sponsor, was $7,000.00 and dues were $3,000 a year. But you would have been proud of me in that I choked back the blood I was coughing up and asked what the waiting list was like. He explained very gently that there were about 20 people on the list, many of them the sons of members, and they take on about 2 new members per year. I did the math real quickly while he added that they normally do not take on new members my age and that he sincerely doubted I would ever be accepted as a member.

Now 20 years ago, I would have said "Oh, yeah, Buddy?" and called Gunsmoke in as a consultant on how to deal with the guy. But old age has a way of maturing a man and I found myself thanking him for his frankness and his time and went online to research the Port Bay Hunting Club. It was founded in 1903 and has 40 fewer members than the St. Charles Bay Club. You can guess the rest. I think it was W.C. Fields who said he would not be a member of any club who would accept him, and I figure that if I ever started a club, I would want to be able to choose the membership from those who applied--both of them.

So now I have a fine double gun choked a little too tight for the doves I will definitely hunt with it, too nice a finish to risk near salt water, small chambers, and too valuable in the original to ream out to 3 inch chambers and install Briley's chokes in.

What's a mother to do?

Russ

 

[Snagged]

Russ,
It's a tool and ment to be used!

 

[Ross]

Russ,

As for a duck hunting gun, go buy a Remington 870 Express Magnum. That gun will take care of everything you need.

The duck hunting I would be doing down there would all be public. I hunt public 99% of the time.

Just shoot me a PM when you are ready.