Any tips or suggestions?

[tanzak88]

My dad and I are hittin' the water tomorrow (in the Interior) and I'm wanting to get a couple tips for spread set up and hunting with changing wind directions. Sounds like it's going to be pretty dang windy tomorrow, and I would imagine some changing wind directions as well. We'll be on a fairly large body of water that we hunt once or twice every year and know which direction the majority of birds come from (or so it seems).

We're going for honkers and greenheads, and have 6 or 7 dozen dekes. We've got a dozen goose shells for on land, and a dozen floaters. The remaining 4 or 5 dozen dekes are mallards, as well as three mojo mallards (wind operated). Just wondering what sort of spread we should throw out there. With changing wind directions, I would imagine an "X" or a "T" would be fairly productive with different landing zones for different wind directions? I've browsed around on here a bit but my internet is too slow to search effectively, and I'm sure that this topic has come up quite often so I appologize in advance.

Thanks a lot guys!

Dang we gotta get our pup trained up, so I don't have to retrieve in my kayak...

[fowl language]

as far as geese go the x or the j is better then the t as the t tends to get them landing out side the top of the t . if you get a prevailing wind i use a v with about a 30 or 40 ft opening at the bottom of the v have youe shore side of the v longer then the outside of the v....fowl

[tanzak88]

Ahh, thanks for the tips. May as well give an update as to how the day went. The birds aren't flying yet, it seems. Usually we hunt this place after all the smaller ponds freeze up. Pretty much their only option for water when that happens. All we had were a couple two and three bird fly-bys out of range, and a flock of about 2 dozen geese that happened to get into range, and we dropped one.. Got too excited and the first shot was a clean miss, second dropped one (Dad and I shot at the same one), then the trusty ol' pump did a double eject and they were out of range when I cycled a third round through... dang shotgun.

We ended up doing two groups about 15 yards apart, 3 dozen mallard dekes, and only a dozen geese about 15 yards down from the right group (six of which were "feeding" on land, and the other six approaching the shore).

We got a late start, there was no wind, and the smaller ponds aren't frozen over yet, that's what I blame it on :) Whether there's any truth to these excuses, we've still got a lot to learn. All in all, it was nice to get out of the house for the day. Oh, and out of the three boxes we took, we only fired four rounds! Hah, that's even better, especially considering the price of shells, holy man! The honker was a bonus, I've only gotten 4... and a half... Dad's gotten a half. Isn't that how it works? :)

T