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  • teratos

    My hair is amazing
    MDS Supporter
    Patriot Picket
    Jan 22, 2009
    59,775
    Bel Air
    Went to Chincoteague this weekend with BrowningGuy. Buffleheads everywhere. We ate a lot of oysters and drank a lot of whiskey. It was a blast.
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    gtodave

    Member
    MDS Supporter
    Aug 14, 2007
    14,156
    Mt Airy
    Went to Chincoteague this weekend with BrowningGuy. Buffleheads everywhere. We ate a lot of oysters and drank a lot of whiskey. It was a blast.
    I love hunting the coast. Didn't make it down there last year, and this year isn't looking so good either.

    Got a first for me yesterday though, so that's cool
     

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    metalman3006

    Gun Hoarder
    Sep 6, 2007
    2,305
    Church Hill, MD
    Went down to the honga a couple of times the last 2 weeks has 10000 blue bills and red heads half a mile from us but could get only buffle heads. This week they are finally coming over to our side so I hope Saturday is going to be good. Did get invited to an afternoon goose hunt in Chestertown with my son Tuesday
     

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    teratos

    My hair is amazing
    MDS Supporter
    Patriot Picket
    Jan 22, 2009
    59,775
    Bel Air
    I love hunting the coast. Didn't make it down there last year, and this year isn't looking so good either.

    Got a first for me yesterday though, so that's cool
    Nice! I have never even shot at a Can. On my bucket list.
     

    Derwood

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 2, 2011
    1,075
    DC area
    Lower Potomac Friday and Saturday: windy and in the 40's. LOTS of flying buffleheads, bluebills and some big ducks I couldn't clearly identify. Lots of geese flying. NONE would come near the shore and my decoys. Tough outings! The only shooting I heard was from boats sitting in the river. I totally understand why those guys set up in the river across from my shore blinds -- it seems like they shoot a lot of ducks that way -- but man does it sort of piss me off since they hunt like 400 yards in front of me and there is nothing I can do about it. I'll try again for the final time this weekend.
     

    gtodave

    Member
    MDS Supporter
    Aug 14, 2007
    14,156
    Mt Airy
    Lower Potomac Friday and Saturday: windy and in the 40's. LOTS of flying buffleheads, bluebills and some big ducks I couldn't clearly identify. Lots of geese flying. NONE would come near the shore and my decoys. Tough outings! The only shooting I heard was from boats sitting in the river. I totally understand why those guys set up in the river across from my shore blinds -- it seems like they shoot a lot of ducks that way -- but man does it sort of piss me off since they hunt like 400 yards in front of me and there is nothing I can do about it. I'll try again for the final time this weekend.
    You should get one of those blinds next year. Get it as close to your shore blind as you can (I think 250 yards). Then nobody else can be right in front of you, and you can work both spots if you want.
     

    fabsroman

    Ultimate Member
    Mar 14, 2009
    35,852
    Winfield/Taylorsville in Carroll
    Was wondering how you did on Saturday gtodave. Was also coming here to mention that today is the first day I have seen geese moving all over the place. Still not moving in the numbers I am used to seeing, but they were moving. Heck, saw way more geese 3 years ago when we first moved in here than I saw today. Compared to 20 years ago, the amount of birds I saw today is almost nothing, but still the most I have seen this entire season.
     

    fabsroman

    Ultimate Member
    Mar 14, 2009
    35,852
    Winfield/Taylorsville in Carroll
    Another first for me. The upper Potomac occasionally surprises!

    View attachment 397614
    Green wing teal is one of the first ducks I ever shot. Think it was back in November 1997. That was my first real duck hunt in the marsh, freezing my cajones off in the rain. Almost had a stroke when the other birds it was with went vertical after the first shot.

    Very pretty bird right there.
     

    lazarus

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 23, 2015
    13,673
    Was wondering how you did on Saturday gtodave. Was also coming here to mention that today is the first day I have seen geese moving all over the place. Still not moving in the numbers I am used to seeing, but they were moving. Heck, saw way more geese 3 years ago when we first moved in here than I saw today. Compared to 20 years ago, the amount of birds I saw today is almost nothing, but still the most I have seen this entire season.
    Ditto. I've seen so few this year it has been crazy.

    Also everyone's pictures and stores are making me incredibly jealous. Duck or goose hunting is one of those things I've really wanted to get into, but just haven't (or can't?). A lot is access of course. One of those goals some day is a decent sized property and if there isn't a pond, figure out a way to put one in. Even if it is just a little quarter acre pond stocked with a few fish that gets some ducks or geese occasionally. Retirement goal.
     

    fabsroman

    Ultimate Member
    Mar 14, 2009
    35,852
    Winfield/Taylorsville in Carroll
    Ditto. I've seen so few this year it has been crazy.

    Also everyone's pictures and stores are making me incredibly jealous. Duck or goose hunting is one of those things I've really wanted to get into, but just haven't (or can't?). A lot is access of course. One of those goals some day is a decent sized property and if there isn't a pond, figure out a way to put one in. Even if it is just a little quarter acre pond stocked with a few fish that gets some ducks or geese occasionally. Retirement goal.
    Access is usually the problem. However, with a boat and some knowledge, you can get into it on the Potomac or the Monocacy. Can also try to get a blind site during the lottery. I used to have access to three great spots for goose hunting, but the owner of two passed and both those spots have been sold by the estate. I only have one spot left in Howard County, but the geese are just not there like they were 20 years ago. I am about to start asking around in Carroll County with the hope of finding a good spot or two. Have already been offered a ton of opportunities to deer hunt, but my passion is wing shooting. Think I am going to have to buy a boat for fishing and duck hunting and figure out how to hunt in the rivers and creeks. The marsh on the Eastern Shore is another option, but that drive is a SOB.

    A farm purchase is on the horizon. Just don't know how long it is going to take me to get to that point.
     

    lazarus

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 23, 2015
    13,673
    Access is usually the problem. However, with a boat and some knowledge, you can get into it on the Potomac or the Monocacy. Can also try to get a blind site during the lottery. I used to have access to three great spots for goose hunting, but the owner of two passed and both those spots have been sold by the estate. I only have one spot left in Howard County, but the geese are just not there like they were 20 years ago. I am about to start asking around in Carroll County with the hope of finding a good spot or two. Have already been offered a ton of opportunities to deer hunt, but my passion is wing shooting. Think I am going to have to buy a boat for fishing and duck hunting and figure out how to hunt in the rivers and creeks. The marsh on the Eastern Shore is another option, but that drive is a SOB.

    A farm purchase is on the horizon. Just don't know how long it is going to take me to get to that point.
    Yeah, understood. I am at the intersection of what I want now/soon and what I want eventually. Things can of course change, but I am pretty dead set on not staying in MD. I love it, but frankly I love the mountains and snow a whole lot more. And there just isn't much of that to be found here, even out in Garret. VT, NH, ME all find lower taxes and a climate I like better (I really don't like hot, cold never bothered me anyway. Of course, in 30 years, who knows). Or WA or OR.

    So I kind of don't want to tie myself down by buying something in the area and then needing to sell it. Then again, it is looking like I have till 57. At a minimum till ~51 and my youngest graduates college (well, assuming that is the path she chooses). And then that assumes work allows me to relocate somewhere else. 57 till I can retire. So, 12 to 17 more years. That is a LONG time to "struggle" with access and my situation. Of course if HoCo does amend archery safety zones, that will make me feel a lot better that I am not likely to lose my little access to archery deer hunting I have now (pretty much just at the grace of my neighbors).

    And oh no, worse comes to worse I have a second property I have to sell some day. Or maybe that isn't even the worse just to maintain the property even if I am living far away. I might still have a kid(s) living in the area or living on the west coast, no WT hunting on there. Other great stuff, but an annual trip back to my east coast property for a week of WT hunting doesn't actually sound that terrible. So I don't know. A dozen acres in western MD, WV, or SW PA or even possibly east of the neck (if not TOO far east of Hancock) might be okay.

    My biggest thing is, I am just fine on my shotgun skills, even if not amazing. It is more I feel absolutely 100% lost in things like how the heck to call, identifying ducks by eye, how to setup decoys, even getting decoys, etc. The closest I have to a boat right now is a body board. A canoe is on my list soon, though of course that doesn't necessarily cover what I'd need. I assume you can't duck/goose hunt on Liberty reservoir (what I am thinking of getting the canoe for). It is a bit of my struggle with Turkey hunting too. Though at least there, I feel like I have better access on public land. That and maybe one of these days I'll luck out and a gobbler will wander by on my property during the season (I see turkey's occasionally, sometimes during the season, but most have been hens and the only gobbler I've seen was right after a rainstorm, an hour after legal shooting hours in April last year. But he would have been a chip shot, 20yds, from my bedroom window if opening the window wouldn't scare him off).
     

    fabsroman

    Ultimate Member
    Mar 14, 2009
    35,852
    Winfield/Taylorsville in Carroll
    I have seen more geese in the last 3 days than I saw flying around all of hunting season. Had about 2,000 birds fly directly over my house today. Huge V after huge V, with a couple small Vs low enough that I could have killed some birds out of them. Saw a group of 300 to 400 working a cut cornfield the other morning.

    Some of these birds are 500+ yards up. I can hear them, but my eyes take quite a while to pick out the small dots up in the sky.

    It appears as though winter is over. Now that I have written that, I'll be starting up the snow blower in a couple of days.
     

    fabsroman

    Ultimate Member
    Mar 14, 2009
    35,852
    Winfield/Taylorsville in Carroll
    Saw a first today, snow geese in Carroll County about 3 miles from my house. About 20 of them were mixed in with a group of 40 Canadian geese on a pond by me. The snows were there all day and at sunset they were out in a field feeding on grass.

    It reminded me of when I saw four tundra swans drop into the decoys out in Washington County some 20+ years ago.

    Saw a flock of snows flying high over my spread in Howard County some 20 years ago, but this is the first time I have seen them on the ground on the western side of Maryland.
     

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