My personal rules for jumping:

1. Only do it when hunting another species. Don't say you are going 'duck hunting' and just jump all day unless you need the meat for a sausage fest.

2. No jumped ducks go on the wall. Unless it is a woodie or you are actually sitting with a spread out and you have to move 10 feet around a tree to scare one up which really isn't jumping but getting a better position since it landed a little out of range.

3. Give your friends heck when their wall is filled with jumped ducks.

How many of y'all 'duck hunt' properties with multiple waterholes? I do so after about 9 or 10 am, we will go jump another one to get an extra bird or two. I find it a lot of fun as most of our hunts never result in 4 man limits so we get an extra bird or two.

well played

spotlight an noon

LOL.....couldve been a REALLY cloudy day

If you don't mind blowing the birds off your entire place, then yes you can add a duck or two to your bag this way!

I don't duck hunt near as much as I used to and we never hunted the same place but once every two weeks. These were just acre ponds, not waterfowl central. It used to be incredible until the sand company moved in next door.

The best part about it is you can sleep in late in the morning and still kill just as many ducks as the ones that get up early and work thier butts off setting up deeks and everything!

It is just fine to jump tanks. I can not believe there are decoy snobs pooping the idea. Decoyed birds are fun and is an art(I do enjoy watching them cup in). Try to sneak up on a tank with no cover in the middle of a pasture late in the season without busting ducks. It takes some skill and luck. When you do get close and pop up to shoot, picking out your duck can be a hoot. Just my $.02

Why go jump them..99 percent of the time the birds on a tank are coming there regardless if there are dekes out or not..Go set up there before legal and watch them cup in...One of the best ways to hunt when you are by yourself or one other..Easy limits usually...

I agree that decoying ducks is way more fun,ethical and sporting but jump shooting ducks is still pretty fun you gotta admit. But with geese. if theyre out in a field or on a tank and theres only open ground or little cover thats just as hard as decoying them. Bellycrawling 300 yardson open ground with 600 eyes watching you and trying not to alert them. one time i got lucky and a herd of cattle was moving there way so i put on a heavy dark colored ghillie suit and mixed in with the herd of cattle and looked like a cow and when we got up to about 20 yards the cattle cleared and i blasted. that specific one wasn't very sporting but when you have a chance like that i just had to take it.

Our place has 3 ponds and a creek. We usually hunt the big pond. It has a little pond right next to it. There is a little pond out towards the back of the property and a creek that is usually dry on the very back of the property. If it's slow, I will sometimes go and see if something is on the back pond. We went back there the other day looking for snipe only to come back and there were ducks in the decoys.

i jump tanks if i didn't get my limit

I am not a fan of tank jumping. I am also not a fan of "walking up woodies" while other hunters are still hunting. If you want to jump tanks or walk up woodies, go for it, but please give me until atleast 10am. It ruins everything to have someone tromping through the woods 250 yards off blasting away 5 minutes after legal.

We jump them all the time. 8 or 9 tanks 30 plus ducks each, jump one they just go to the other. Lots of fun! However moose is gonna head down and do some calling and try it that way just for fun. We shall see how it goes. We have never left without seeing a ton of ducks. This is all private land not close to any lakes so it shouldn't bother anyones hunting.

Guess I got uninvited...Oh, well one can only invite themselves so many times.

I have to admit I've pond hopped a couple times(I went once with Cable last year and we hopped after the hunt to get a few more, but I didn't shoot). It's fun to do some extra shooting after a hunt I guess. But I live for putting out the dekes at 3-4 a.m., bsing with good friends, calling, and shotting them in the kisser.

Sounds good.

I love hunting over decoys and doin the work and callin em in...but i still enjoy jumping a pond. IMO its almost like scouting and shooting at the same time. Ive hopped my slough and seen 250+ woodies, a sight like that gaurantees exactly where you will be the next morning at LST

there is another way to duck hunt other than running up the tank dam to shoot em as the fly off?

LoL you damn Austin hippie!

Has anyone ever ever blown a hawk call before busting sitting ducks?

My uncle told me they are more likely to stay on a pond because they know a hawk won't tackle them in the water. Never tried it personaly though.

We used to call it Guerilla hunting. In and out.

If you got a pond holding a few ducks, what the heck, jump them. But if you got a pond holding a lot of ducks, say 30 plus, then it does not make sense to blast them while they are all sitting on the water. Why? Because if you hop them, you will drop a few, and probably only a small percent will return the next day. So you shoot a few ducks, and scared off all the rest.

What is better is be there before legal the next day, shoot them as they are coming in early morning, preferably in small flocks, say you shoot the first 6 ducks that drop in, you get out of there, you got your limit, and you did not scare off all the ducks, because a high percent of those ducks will return the next day if you don’t blast them..

I have to agree with you on that. The anticipation of is there or isnt there going to be birds on the tank, does add to some excitement.