Advice

When it comes to setting decoys and decoying birds, I think I'm pretty knowledgeable. I don't much care for other people telling me how I should do things. But, even if I don't take any immediate action to change things, if I have any respect for the person who critiques my handiwork, I keep those suggestions in my memory bank. Maybe someday, down the pike, I may need some help.

My Father, his friend Joe Bysak from Ohio, Mike McGee and I were hunting on Mouse Harbor. It was a near perfect day. Good wind, plenty of birds, overcast sky, pretty near perfect. We were seeing plenty of ducks, and getting a little shooting, but things weren't going as well as I thought they should have. McGee and I talked over the decoy set, we were satisfied with what we had. We moved the boats farther from the blind and covered them up a little better, but still, things just weren't clicking like I thought they should have. Dad started telling me what all I had done wrong and it really rubbed me the wrong way. I told him that McGee and I had been hunting that blind for a few years and knew how to set the decoys to get the birds in range. He went on and on till I really got pissed and started hollering at him. Finally he and Joe told me they would go out and move the decoys a little and show me what was needed. That was a joke. So I told him I would make whatever changes they thought was necessary. All they said we needed was about 6 more Scoter decoys put out in an angular line outside the pocket of our fishhook pattern. I thought that was ridiculous, but went back to the boat and got out 6 more decoys and put them just where the 2 old "know it alls" said to put them. I was determined to show them they were clueless.

Well, as much as I hate to admit it, they were right. All the birds that had been passing us by a little out of range suddenly started coming right in. We pulled in singles, little bunches of half a dozen or so, and flocks of 30-35 birds. Everything really fell into place. Joe shot so much his old 1100 broke down. Dad got it working a little, so at least he had a single shot. We had one pass on 9 Scoter that we killed them all. That is always cool. Worked the dogs pretty hard. Had a nice flock of Bills decoy perfectly and McGee was able to pick out a Canvasback hen flying with them and add her to the bag. The limits were liberal back then. All in all we killed 22 Bluebills, 15 Scoter and Mike McGee's Canvasback. The day turned out to be exactly what I had hoped for that morning. I have used that trick a few times since then when ducks weren't decoying exactly right. It hasn't ever worked for me again. But on that day in Mouse Harbor, I was glad I took the advice of the Old Timers.