I am interested in the possibilities of floating a creek or small river here in the fall and jump shooting ducks. What is my best way to practice? Any tips or hard learned lessons are appreciated.
DanOver
DanOver
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Who is shotgunning from a solo canoe?
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I'm NO Expert ! But I'd choose a Kayak, or Wee Lassie type canoe. Something you sit in the bottom of. Lower profile, and more stable to shoot from. A camo cover will aid in getting close.
I'd think if you got up early, and set up in an Oxbow, the ducks might come to you. A canoe should be great to get you to a good place !
As a Youngster, I tried shooting from a canoe, but wasn't very successful in bagging anything.
Others I'm sure will have a better experience !
Jim
I'd think if you got up early, and set up in an Oxbow, the ducks might come to you. A canoe should be great to get you to a good place !
As a Youngster, I tried shooting from a canoe, but wasn't very successful in bagging anything.
Others I'm sure will have a better experience !
Jim
G
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I tried squirrell hunting from a solo canoe once with a .22. the danged thing kept spinning on me!
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pretty much every moose I got have been shot from canoes... Not shooting ducks yet though!! I always wanted to try. I don't think it would be any different!!
I'm thinking about balance in my OT pack and being able to hit anything. I'll probably start experimenting with the .410 single and work up to the benelli.
G
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I know several people who have successfully hunted deer,bear and water foul from a canoe, but all from a tandem. Like I said it wont stand still.
G
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Dan, I duckhunted for a dozen or so years from an Old Town Pack on rivers and marshes here in Maryland. I learned a few lessons, none hard.
For starters it is easier and more effective to use a tandem canoe, with the bow shooting and the stern solely paddling and maintaining control of the boat. None the less after a couple years going tandem my hunting partner and I went into solo canoes.
Using a 12 gauge was fine, the kick from the shotgun was inconsequential in terms of boat stability.
It helps to arrange some kind of convenient gun rest. You will have paddle in hand until the last moment when the ducks jump up, and will lose a precious second or two setting the paddle down and picking up the shotgun. Any delay more than a second or two and you might as well not take the shot.
I used a long double blade in the Pack, but when I sighted ducks ahead I put the double down and picked up a short, almost kid sized single blade. The less visible any paddling motion the better, and that was one of the rare times I found an inwater recovery helpful. If you try to stop paddling and just float slowly closer while holding the shotgun the canoe will invariably begin to drift sideways, and that was always counterproductive.
I made a simple brush holder for the bow of the Pack, just a board Swiss cheesed with a bunch of drilled holes. I would plug Pin oak branches, which keep their leaves through the winter, into the holes as bow camouflage. That simple trick helped immensely, coming downriver the Pack looked more like a clump of floating brush and less like a canoe and paddler.
The most helpful trick we learned was to go with a partner and use two solo canoes. One of us would head downriver first while the other waited at the launch point for half an hour. The trailing boat a half mile behind would often get a shot at the ducks the first boat jumped when they flew upriver. When I heard BOOM BOOM I would immediately look for an eddy to pull into with a good view downriver.
We eventually settled on a leapfrog technique. Each of us carried decoys in the canoe. After a mile or two the lead canoe would find an eddy or shallows for the canoe and toss out some decoys. The trailing canoe would sometimes jump ducks that would head downriver and glide into the decoys.
When the trailing canoe caught up we would sit together over those decoys, and then the trailing canoe would head off first while the other canoe stayed with the decoys for a half hour. The new downstream canoe would jump stuff that settled in upriver at the decoys, and that new front boat would go a mile or two downstream, set out their decoys, and repeat.
We used that same leapfrog technique when hunting in marshes. The lead canoe would head up some gut or side slough and the second canoe would wait at the entrance.
By far the most productive duckhunting technique in the marshes was to get off the main body of water. We always wondered where the ducks went after dawn when the shooting started, and one day with little action we took a marsh walk and found the answer.
We took a leg stretcher and walked a couple hundred yards back into the marsh to find the little basin ponds and puddles FILLED with ducks. After that we rarely bothered hunting the mainstem in the marsh. Instead we headed straight out towards those inner marsh ponds and dragged our solo canoes back to sit and float there instead.
The guys with jonboats and motors could not possibly get back to those little basin ponds and we always had them to ourselves, and never failed to hit our limit.
One memorable bag limit story. On one trip when we were still using a tandem my hunting partners son came along. He had just passed his hunter safety course and was duckhunting for the first time. We put him in the bow of my 17 foot tandem with an over and under 12 gauge, with his father in the middle and me handling stern.
His dad was telling the tale of a double he had hit the previous weekend when we saw a flock of ducks ahead. We reminded his son in the bow Do not shoot until they jump.
Crap, just upriver, between us and the ducks, was a short weir with an obvious tongue. Do not shoot, do not shoot until we are past the weir. The ducks were clustered in the pool immediately after the weir.
The canoe bobbed through the weir and the ducks did not jump until we were dang near in the middle of them. BOOM. . .BOOM.
Five. Five ducks with two shots. His son had limited out with his first two shots. His dad never mentioned his double again.
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Another example; Ever try the take a picture from a solo canoe and find that the solo which you couldn't get to turn on a narrow creek or in freestyle practice-----suddenly spins like a top!
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Dan, one more thing. I do not know about Indiana, but in Maryland waterfowling from a moving boat is restricted to a handful of rivers and requires a free Sneakboating Permit. In the case of Maryland that permit is issued at the residents county seat, not the county in which he will be hunting.
I used to hunt from my old Grumman canoe with my girl Molly, best dog I every had...well, I say that about all of them. We used to go to a small pond nearby that had good early season goose hunting before the "skyblasters" showed up and would ruin the places for the season. Those guys would shot at anything no matter how far away. We would hide in beaver troughs out on mid pond islands with decoys and homemade camo from burlap and leaf covered branches.
As far as floating, I would leave the dog home. I used the same canoe with a roll of burlap streched from one end of the canoe to the other with a hole cut out for myself. I had used black and brown spray paint to make the burlap more "camoed" and then I would lay branches on top. These branches had leaves and really added to the camo effect. The river I hunted (Housatonic in Connecticut) had ducks but they where very shy and you really had to do your homework to get a shot, so the camo really helped.
As far as floating, I would leave the dog home. I used the same canoe with a roll of burlap streched from one end of the canoe to the other with a hole cut out for myself. I had used black and brown spray paint to make the burlap more "camoed" and then I would lay branches on top. These branches had leaves and really added to the camo effect. The river I hunted (Housatonic in Connecticut) had ducks but they where very shy and you really had to do your homework to get a shot, so the camo really helped.
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I have nothing informed to contribute to the thread aside from shame.. I blundered onto decoys in a cove on the Connecticut River that well they were real looking.... I picked one up.. The nearby floating bush sighed and groaned. They took a lot of care in disguising their canoe and them.. Of course I had scared all the live duck candidates.
Great info guys! Thank you all for your responses. I will check into what's legal and see if I can't get in a little floating fun. Both my square stern tandem and pack are green and will camouflage well.
DanO
DanO
Rarely duck hunt from a solo canoe. Pirogue's and mud boats are much more efficient for duck hunting down here being the reason. Hunted my share of ducks, and still have every one of my signed Federal Duck Stamps since 1968. Daughter wants to frame them all together whenever I stop or die. Hope I never get to see them framed. Just finished one of the best seasons due to plenty of hard cold fronts pushing ducks south early. When we get snow twice, duck hunting gets better.
Do use a tandem though to float hunt squirrels; floating creeks running through hardwood bottoms. Two foot long skulling paddle used one handed for when actually hunting. Basically just steering, using current for propulsion. Have the skulling paddle on a 1/8" piece of braided nylon, dyed brown, that allows me to simply release to paddle into the water rather than trying to get it back onboard. Just let it float on its leash, and slowly reach up to grab the butt stock of the shotgun that rests across my lap. Works great for squirrels, and not at all uncommon to jump ducks, but I still prefer to use lead for squirrels, so the ducks survive on those trips.
That's the best tip I can give you, letting the short skulling paddle go loose on a leash, rather than trying to get It back on board. That paddle motion going back into the boat, trying to put it down quietly, and then picking up a gun motion alone, has been enough to blow plenty of opportunities.
No reason not to use what you have, just make sure you wear your PFD.
Do use a tandem though to float hunt squirrels; floating creeks running through hardwood bottoms. Two foot long skulling paddle used one handed for when actually hunting. Basically just steering, using current for propulsion. Have the skulling paddle on a 1/8" piece of braided nylon, dyed brown, that allows me to simply release to paddle into the water rather than trying to get it back onboard. Just let it float on its leash, and slowly reach up to grab the butt stock of the shotgun that rests across my lap. Works great for squirrels, and not at all uncommon to jump ducks, but I still prefer to use lead for squirrels, so the ducks survive on those trips.
That's the best tip I can give you, letting the short skulling paddle go loose on a leash, rather than trying to get It back on board. That paddle motion going back into the boat, trying to put it down quietly, and then picking up a gun motion alone, has been enough to blow plenty of opportunities.
No reason not to use what you have, just make sure you wear your PFD.
G
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Dan, my Pack was likewise Green. I though it made a wonderful solo duckhunting boat. It was small enough not to present to much of a visible a threat floating downriver, easy to tuck back into the shoreline grass or trees, and light enough I could drag it across the marsh grass loaded with decoys. Even the usually detrimental things about the Pack were beneficial in some ways, the flat stable bottom as helpful when shooting afloat, and hull speed was not of the essence.
I never practiced shooting from a moving canoe. I guess you could go out beforehand and practice dropping the paddle and picking up the gun to see what works best, or take the .410 out for squirrels, but the learning curve was short and soon obvious for ducks taking flight.
It is subtly different than pass shooting from a blind, in large part because the ducks usually start out on the water instead of winging down to drop in. Some subtle differences.
You will not have the same range of motion as when standing and shooting, especially shooting with a PFD on.
You will not be as fast, the couple seconds it takes to pick up and shoulder the shotgun are precious, especially with fast fliers like wood ducks. Bow of a tandem, shotgun at the ready, is much easier.
You may need to retrain yourself to be selective about which shots to take. Whether it was the couple seconds extra flight distance, or shooting from an unstable platform, I did not take a lot of shots I would have if standing on solid ground, and often used an old single barrel 12G. Rarely did I think I had time for a well aimed second shot, never for a third.
Mini rant. When I hear the BOOMBOOMBOOM in split seconds time from a semiauto I question the aim and accuracy of that third shot.
Last actual shooting things. I did not take some shots I could have when sneakboating small and narrow rivers. I was very careful about shooting in any proximity to roads or houses, even if legally far enough distant.
I did not need landowner issues, even if I was legally in the right. Yes, I had a few, including an irate resident near a bridge screaming threats about shotgun pellets falling on his roof. We had not seen any birds or fired a shot within 2 miles of his house, and had not heard anyone else shooting. But, when it is time to git, well, I was headed in that direction anyway.
And, lastly, I was uber careful on narrow twisty rivers not to shoot before the birds had some elevation.
Two elevation stories to illustrate. Out tandem with my partner in the bow we came across a flock of ducks on the water and slowly crept closer and closer. The instant they jumped, mere feet off the water, my bowman shot. Twice. Pretty much instantaneously a hunter in a well disguised blind downriver of the ducks jumped up and fired.
He was fine, we were fine, I apologized and he said Oh, I knew I was gonna get dusted. He actually thanked us for having driven those ducks downriver into his spread. You should be so lucky.
Second story. Two boat duckhunting trip with my usual partner. We were doing the leapfrog decoy thing and I had joined him tucked back in a deeply embayed eddy to sit with him over his decoys. No action, so I paddled out to head downriver in front of him when a bunch of ducks began to glide in on the decoys.
I had the shotgun in hand and a perfect lead as they were still gliding down, and did not shoot. They saw us and began to wing away upriver. I did not shoot. My partner, in his canoe 30 feet behind me is now yelling Shoot, SHOOT. I did not shoot.
The birds never got more than 3 feet off the water from the time I had the gun in hand until they were headed out of sight around the bend.
No way in heck I was shooting straight upriver through the brush into the unbackstopped unknown. At least in the marsh I can see who is out there or what is coming from where. That incident made me rethink him as a hunting partner, especially since I was coming downriver as the trailing boat half the time.
I have twice had the evil doppler hiss of rifle round zing past my head from idiot plinkers down by the river, and do not care to risk being on the sending part of that irresponsibility.
BTW, I had a very clever camo cloth spray cover DIYed for the Pack, with a tall arched stay in the front, made from half a hula hoop. It looked cool and a couple of times when I was stopped for DRN inspection the officers were as interested in my camo solo rig as anything else.
It looked cool, but for downriver sneakboating purposes it was not worth the complication. Even with the high arched front cowling it was more of a pain to get paddles in and out, more difficult to arrange a secure and easy access gun rest, and probably did less to obscure my appearance from downriver ducks on the water than the brush bob holder on the bow.
I used it on marsh trips and it may have helped when sitting over decoys in the open grass, but a camo poncho laid out fore and aft would have served just as well, and disguised more of me sitting tall in the center.
I tried tying the kid sized paddle to the canoe one trip but could not make it work. When tied on a long enough lead to reach either side of the canoe the leash was a nuisance around my primary paddle and gun, and if I took a wee corrective stroke and let the paddle go to float too soon I sometimes regretted it, as I would find myself, ah crap, now needing a stroke on the other side, and have to wet hand a paddle and cord out of the water. Floating canoe, fast ducks and effing wet cold hands on the shotgun did nothing for my accuracy.
A simple hand sculling paddle would work if easily transferable from side to side, especially if it somehow kept your hands dry while in use. Old wood paddle blade with a couple webbing straps maybe.
Outfitting wise the first thing I would work on is a secure and convenient gun rest. Diving into cold off season Indiana rivers ISO a sunken Benelli sounds like little fun, and the split second you save in picking up the shotgun may make all the difference.
Jump shooting ducks from a moving canoe is a challenging niche. Enjoy.
I never practiced shooting from a moving canoe. I guess you could go out beforehand and practice dropping the paddle and picking up the gun to see what works best, or take the .410 out for squirrels, but the learning curve was short and soon obvious for ducks taking flight.
It is subtly different than pass shooting from a blind, in large part because the ducks usually start out on the water instead of winging down to drop in. Some subtle differences.
You will not have the same range of motion as when standing and shooting, especially shooting with a PFD on.
You will not be as fast, the couple seconds it takes to pick up and shoulder the shotgun are precious, especially with fast fliers like wood ducks. Bow of a tandem, shotgun at the ready, is much easier.
You may need to retrain yourself to be selective about which shots to take. Whether it was the couple seconds extra flight distance, or shooting from an unstable platform, I did not take a lot of shots I would have if standing on solid ground, and often used an old single barrel 12G. Rarely did I think I had time for a well aimed second shot, never for a third.
Mini rant. When I hear the BOOMBOOMBOOM in split seconds time from a semiauto I question the aim and accuracy of that third shot.
Last actual shooting things. I did not take some shots I could have when sneakboating small and narrow rivers. I was very careful about shooting in any proximity to roads or houses, even if legally far enough distant.
I did not need landowner issues, even if I was legally in the right. Yes, I had a few, including an irate resident near a bridge screaming threats about shotgun pellets falling on his roof. We had not seen any birds or fired a shot within 2 miles of his house, and had not heard anyone else shooting. But, when it is time to git, well, I was headed in that direction anyway.
And, lastly, I was uber careful on narrow twisty rivers not to shoot before the birds had some elevation.
Two elevation stories to illustrate. Out tandem with my partner in the bow we came across a flock of ducks on the water and slowly crept closer and closer. The instant they jumped, mere feet off the water, my bowman shot. Twice. Pretty much instantaneously a hunter in a well disguised blind downriver of the ducks jumped up and fired.
He was fine, we were fine, I apologized and he said Oh, I knew I was gonna get dusted. He actually thanked us for having driven those ducks downriver into his spread. You should be so lucky.
Second story. Two boat duckhunting trip with my usual partner. We were doing the leapfrog decoy thing and I had joined him tucked back in a deeply embayed eddy to sit with him over his decoys. No action, so I paddled out to head downriver in front of him when a bunch of ducks began to glide in on the decoys.
I had the shotgun in hand and a perfect lead as they were still gliding down, and did not shoot. They saw us and began to wing away upriver. I did not shoot. My partner, in his canoe 30 feet behind me is now yelling Shoot, SHOOT. I did not shoot.
The birds never got more than 3 feet off the water from the time I had the gun in hand until they were headed out of sight around the bend.
No way in heck I was shooting straight upriver through the brush into the unbackstopped unknown. At least in the marsh I can see who is out there or what is coming from where. That incident made me rethink him as a hunting partner, especially since I was coming downriver as the trailing boat half the time.
I have twice had the evil doppler hiss of rifle round zing past my head from idiot plinkers down by the river, and do not care to risk being on the sending part of that irresponsibility.
BTW, I had a very clever camo cloth spray cover DIYed for the Pack, with a tall arched stay in the front, made from half a hula hoop. It looked cool and a couple of times when I was stopped for DRN inspection the officers were as interested in my camo solo rig as anything else.
It looked cool, but for downriver sneakboating purposes it was not worth the complication. Even with the high arched front cowling it was more of a pain to get paddles in and out, more difficult to arrange a secure and easy access gun rest, and probably did less to obscure my appearance from downriver ducks on the water than the brush bob holder on the bow.
I used it on marsh trips and it may have helped when sitting over decoys in the open grass, but a camo poncho laid out fore and aft would have served just as well, and disguised more of me sitting tall in the center.
I tried tying the kid sized paddle to the canoe one trip but could not make it work. When tied on a long enough lead to reach either side of the canoe the leash was a nuisance around my primary paddle and gun, and if I took a wee corrective stroke and let the paddle go to float too soon I sometimes regretted it, as I would find myself, ah crap, now needing a stroke on the other side, and have to wet hand a paddle and cord out of the water. Floating canoe, fast ducks and effing wet cold hands on the shotgun did nothing for my accuracy.
A simple hand sculling paddle would work if easily transferable from side to side, especially if it somehow kept your hands dry while in use. Old wood paddle blade with a couple webbing straps maybe.
Outfitting wise the first thing I would work on is a secure and convenient gun rest. Diving into cold off season Indiana rivers ISO a sunken Benelli sounds like little fun, and the split second you save in picking up the shotgun may make all the difference.
Jump shooting ducks from a moving canoe is a challenging niche. Enjoy.
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Either go tandem with the shooter in the bow or use the solo as a stationary shooting platforrm / blind. And use a tandem or ideally a guide canoe, not a snappy little rocket boat that is going to dump you in the coooold coooold river.
Great info guys, a solid plan for training and trial and error is forming. Keep it coming!
Darn, I thought I was going to get some lessons here on how to chug beer from a can while in my canoe. Imagine my disappointment when I learned you didn't mean that kind of "shotgunning.".
My 16 foot tremblay is the perfect platform for duck hunting. Haven't shot any from it, but think I will rectify that situation next fall. Also looking forward to paddling one of the 20 footers down stream with my son in the bow. He can be duck blaster, I'll just steer. In Ontario, if you have a motor on the boat, you must remove it from the transom before shooting. Some guys think pulling it out of the water is good enough, but not according to the CO I talked to. You can shoot from a moving canoe, as long as it is being paddled.
G
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In that practice guise I would recommend shotgunning bats at dusk from the rear deck lid of an early 70s Fiat Spyder convertible. They will fly back towards the wad if you miss, providing excellent second shot practice.
FWIW museum collections, we had permits.
FWIW II, I stopped killing anything larger than mice or insects a dozen years ago.
