Not a lot of birds flying this past week

[mastercaster]

Talked to a few hunters who haven't seen many birds this past week or two. I think we need a good cold snap. Luckily we a had a few birds come to the decoys yesterday but not a whole lot were flying. No shortage of mud in the fields with all this rain, though. Thought for sure all the dirt/mud on my griff was going to clog the drain yesterday. haha

https://i.imgur.com/kBqYsVD.jpg

[Beachcomber]

Nice picture. Was out for a few short hours the weekend again and got a couple, but they were flying in singles and pairs, not seeing a lot of birds. Saw a guy running up river mid day whose boat was piled high with snow goose decoys. Wonder how he did? Agree on the need for a cold snap. It has been very mild this season. Sat in the foreshore mud and chatted with my son, so a great day regardless.

[happyhunter]

I haven’t had the opportunity to hunt birds but looks like a good haul! Handsome dog too you’ve got there, he looks like a pro!

[Gone_Fishin_]

It's been pretty decent inland around the Chilliwack area, not as many as were used to seeing this time of year but have had some great shoots this past week. Saturday i went solo for a few hours and managed 7 nice mallards with no spinner and only a dozen floaters in the field. Sunday buddy and i took my boat out and hit a back channel, mix of mallards, wood ducks a single widgeon and finished with a hen merganser. 14 total, we unfortunately lost 2 to the bushes and couldn't find them. Counted those in our bag limit so called it a day at 11:00.

Craziest first light ever though, we probably had around 250-300 mallards in the decoys and i swear a thousand wood ducks were flying above us. Would have been nice if the guys a few fields over didn't shoot 5 minutes before legal causing everything to flush out on us while we waited for legal shooting time.

[Ron.C]

Nice shoot!!!!

Been slower the last week where I hunt. The beginning of Dec was amazing. If the skybusters would learn a bit of restraint, it would be even better.

Hopefully it picks up again

[deltawaterfowler]

Nice haul! I've been skunked the past few times out on boundary bay. I really do need field access.

[MichelD]

Good going. I thought you were serious when you said not a lot of birds flying. Looks like a good shoot to me.

I went to a Delta field I go to yesterday and got one mallard for four hours hunched in my blind in the rain. Now that was indeed NOT a lot of birds flying. Three in the same spot last week. I usually do better there in January though. The farmer did all corn this year and in previous years had potatoes there so that might be the reason for fewer birds in the area than previous years.

Maybe I'll try Pitt River tomorrow.

Gone_Fishin_ ....Chilliwack sounds nuts! I'm just not seeing big numbers overhead. Even last week, when they were flying high.

[Farmer]

Haven't seen many ducks flying Agassiz way. Usually this time of year is really good.
We even have a few corn fields that weren't harvested that have failed to attract.
There have been quite a few geese flying the past few days .
Hopefully by after Christmas we will have more time to get after them.

[silveragent]

After getting a pintail, Eurasian widgeon and regular widgeon on Sunday at Brunswick I got skunked middle of the week and then yesterday just got one little GW teal for a lot of effort. I do think a lot of the birds have moved on EXCEPT snowies. If you have a boat you should be slaying them. They are just hanging out at Deltaport every day in the thousands and yesterday I nearly snuck up on them on the Brunswick shore. They were right in the mud flats in that bay closest to Deltaport. Close to end of the day I saw hundreds of ducks commuting down Canoe Pass - again you boaters should be laughing.

[Sako 75]

We did alright this Tuesday. Got out limits of ducks. The pintails are back again. Passed up lots of widgeons and some green wing teals. Not too many gadwalls and shovellers around.

[silveragent]

Saw tons of pintails yesterday Brunswick. They are out there. Smaller mallard groups but again they are out there. For some reason not much teal, maybe they moved on.

[Dutch]

Was out last week in the S/E blow and rain did good with 8 ,but noticed they were definitely getting spinner shy ,turned off the robo and had mostly pairs and singles come in probably to my dekes which were dancing in the wind.So Wildfowl article I read referred to putting the dekes close together in mod-heavy wind to simulate huddling?Something I have never tried in all my years so going to give it a go ,see if its an east coast thing or .. :)

[mastercaster]

Was out last week in the S/E blow and rain did good with 8 ,but noticed they were definitely getting spinner shy ,turned off the robo and had mostly pairs and singles come in probably to my dekes which were dancing in the wind.So Wildfowl article I read referred to putting the dekes close together in mod-heavy wind to simulate huddling?Something I have never tried in all my years so going to give it a go ,see if its an east coast thing or .. :)

I've heard that birds that are close together are on the leery side and being cautious. Birds that are spaced further apart are more relaxed. Not sure how these theories apply to heavier wind on the water, though.

[Ron.C]

I think decoy spacing is subjective and can vary depending on the area you hunt. In one spot I hunt on a real low tide we can pile the decoys in to a particular channel of water and the birds love it. You can watch the birds with binos from the road and they literally land on top of each other in these spots. So we try and replicate what we see live birds do in these spots. Add a bit of current and wind to get the decoys bouncing and it's awesome. On higher tides when we have more water to work with we do better spreading the decoys out a bit more.

I do think though on any given day, it's the little things that screw you. Movement, looking up at birds that are circling, poorly brushed in blind........

[Dutch]

I've heard that birds that are close together are on the leery side and being cautious. Birds that are spaced further apart are more relaxed. Not sure how these theories apply to heavier wind on the water, though.
Yes have always done it that way in the past,same on the prairies just curious as they do it in the late season on some fields back east and as Ron said in the water its pretty well how they land when you throw them out at LW part of the game try something newer if it works great ,if not back to square ..

[lorneparker1]

It's been pretty decent inland around the Chilliwack area, not as many as were used to seeing this time of year but have had some great shoots this past week. Saturday i went solo for a few hours and managed 7 nice mallards with no spinner and only a dozen floaters in the field. Sunday buddy and i took my boat out and hit a back channel, mix of mallards, wood ducks a single widgeon and finished with a hen merganser. 14 total, we unfortunately lost 2 to the bushes and couldn't find them. Counted those in our bag limit so called it a day at 11:00.

Craziest first light ever though, we probably had around 250-300 mallards in the decoys and i swear a thousand wood ducks were flying above us. Would have been nice if the guys a few fields over didn't shoot 5 minutes before legal causing everything to flush out on us while we waited for legal shooting time.

got any pics of those wood ducks?