Is it just me or the ducks being extremely quiet this season. On all of the hunts I've been on this season, calling to the ducks actually scares them off and just being quiet brings more birds into the spread.

i have just about formed the same conclusion. they have heard qwwaaack-qwwaaack-qwwaaack-qwack-qwack about 3 million times on their trip down from canada! lol

This always happens but it is showing a little early this year. I don't ever even blow mallard calls hardly anymore, usually a hen teal and a gadwall. This has always been my answer. Still does fine.

so far where I'm at the birds are responding well to calling.

I have seen a mixture of both. I have hunted this year and once they start in you had to lay off. I have also hunted days that if you didn't stay on them till they made it all the way in they would swing out on you.

Seems like the public I have hunted once I can get them to looking I gotta stop calling but the private stuff they respond a lot better to the calls???

how do ducks know who owns what?

Calling has worked better this year than last year. Maybe I'm getting a little better, maybe they're getting a little dumber. I was on a hunt Friday where the guy I was hunting with who didn't have a lot of calling experience turned a group of gadwall that were high and very far away and brought them back towards us, doing a 180 on a river... they did not decoy but it was still impressive.

I guess what I'm saying is, I believe you, too, and you can't tell with ducks, they did not attend the same safety meeting as us. Playing against the rules, responding to the wrong calls, not responding to calls, flying, not flying. Darn ducks have gone AWOL!!!

We've had them talking to us pretty good this year.
I actually thought they were quacking at us more so than last year?

I agree, it seems like the last week or two most of them did not talk much. We hunted a private place between two large lakes Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we called and some responded great and some did not, we killed 12 but saw a lot of ducks, on Sunday we agreed to just sit in the blind and not call at all, it was very hard, ducks would swing out 200-300 yards at times and then lock up and just glide into our spread, it was great, easy 3 man limit and could have been more if we had more people.
Sometimes when the ducks are pressured it pays to be quiet, I know some will disagree.

I been talking to the birds alot where I hunt. The Wigeon and Gadwall were particularly chatty about 20 minutes before LST and they'd fly over to investigate on occasion. I had some hen mallards out there that were lonely too- judging by their squawking.

Not sure why, but I've noticed the same thing. Well, except for spoonies and teal... they love calling anytime anywhere.

Yeah I have seen a mixture of both. Seems to happen every year and they are acting alot more scared to commit. Most all the young ducks come in with no problem. All the experenced big ducks are acting real funny about responding to traditonal calling.

That is true...but at the same time I have only shot one spoonie but it came in to a call. Teal are awesome to eat and awesome to decoy. The more I hunt the more I love those little birds

Hopedale...I don't know but it is as if they know? Might be the size of the water. I haven't hunted any public places that were small everything was backwaters of bigger lakes and the private places have all been either small tanks or flooded stuff???

**Cough** , **Cough**, could be the caller And I should look in the mirror when I say that

Every once in a while I heard a funny noise out of you or TBK's call it was something like QWACK, QWACK, SQEEE...SON OF A

I was laughing my *** off everytime it happened. Mine was froze up about like my fingers were haha

Thats not funny!

And it was TBK's mine is so used to sounding like that, that I gave up even cussing about it..

Mine did it too...I had to blow through it backwards a couple times to keep it from squealing. I don't cuss about mine I get to laughing, that is how bad it is.

calls dont sound good when they are full of copenhagen

if you have to ask your buddy if it sounds good.... well... you suck.

Yeah it is... and it makes me feel better about MY callin, too!

Hey Butch, how's my callin???

well......