Neither. I was preaching to the guy looking for the easy button.

Can I name ponds

Well the few birds I kill each year come from private and even fewer come from public. So if someone is in 95% of my spots, we will probably be having a pow wow with myself, you(and your party) and the game warden or sheriff.

Seriously though. Barney's have been around for a long time and do breed. They were messing up hunting mornings and locations for many, many moons. Now instead of chasing down gun shots, looking for the most tailers at a boat ramp, watching other hunters at a distance with bino's. They now have internet and hunting forums like we are on. Trust me, you will lose good hunting by posting where you are hunting on a wedsite. Thousands and thousands of ppl can search a website daily and some of them are looking for an easy way for everything in life. Whether it's a spot you have been hunting or knowing where you are going to be and makes it that much easier to break into your vehicle while your setting up decoys in the wee hours of the morning.

a voice of reason

I'm getting tired head on this deal.

I post pictures, some public, some private, so what....

If you recognize the trees behind me, go get 'er done, I don't care.

I'm constantly on the move anyway, so it really isn't a big deal to me, but I will continue to claim Lake X as not to offend anyone.

Fishing the THF for spots is bush league anyway. Do you think the guys on here who consistantly kill ducks are trying to find spots via other guys posts? Yeah right, they are finding them by getting out there and putting in the work.

I did recognize some of the trees in the background of your pictures! Cedars! Oaks! Hard Woods!

Am I close?



Knuckles I don't have to put in work to kill birds! I just read post and jump on someone elses spots. That is my tip for the year.

Mike,

You are always posting nice straps.

Let's get together so I can plant a GPS tracking device on your pickup.

The truth is that I know of several spots that have fallen prey to Barney & Co. I either don't go there anymore or go during the week if I can.

You must have ran into one of my Ex's. Tell her she can't have the truck back. I could end up to my spots then. LOL

How can that be a voice of reason. He is talking about giving up spots of which I agree would be foolish, but it does not happen here. Your talking about a lake name. I have shown how you can find every lake and every hunting area within driving distance of any city, town, county, in the country. And you can do it in two minutes. Information way more sensitive than finding out the name of a lake too.

Exactly.

rumored there are a few birds on Joe's Lake and Seed Orchard Lake... but even more being seen by friends that live on a secluded area of Lake X. Public lake naming is horrible, especially the ones located relatively close to large cities..

Though it is not the same as what we are debating, I am with you on that panama. Like you I have been in this public hunting game long enough that I have more places I could hunt in a given year than I could ever possibly hunt. I bet I spend as much time scouting as hunting in fact.

See, I have spots that I am willing to share with anyone, spots I am willing to share with those I feel will respect the location, spots I hunt only within a certain circle of friends, spots I share only with a single hunting partner every year, spots I may reveal to a new guy to hunt for the season as he learns the ropes, spots so secret I only hunt alone and might even blindfold my dog on the way in so she does not tell anyone. Despite my side of the lake name debate, I have even hunted a couple lakes this year that I did not tell about. And a hunt or two that I did not post about.

Though I think someone mentioning that they hunted Ray Roberts yesterday will not ruin my hunt, what panama talks about certainly can cause some problems. You have to pick your friends or be careful which info you share with whom.

I took a new duck hunter on a couple duck hunts once with a mutual friend. We had a good time on those hunts and he learned a lot for his first hunts. He knew my friend and I were going to go back the next Friday. We showed up on Friday and there were shells laying around and wader tracks in the nearby mud. It was public so we thought nothing of it. Through another mutual friend we later found out he had another friend that duck hunts. The fella never mentioned it during the earlier hunts. They hunted it Wed and Thursday knowing we would be there Friday. The new guy honestly did not know or understand the etiquette of such things, but I am sure his duck hunting friend who talked him into taking him there did. Fortunately it was one of those spots I would have shared with anyone and we still did well that morning.

Also, I believe I have been a victim of your experiment or someone fishing for information. Though the above guy was before this forum and before most people had internet, I did have a guy on this forum pm me to show him the ropes on a duck hunt. He asked all sorts of detailed location questions right up until the night before. Once I sent him the final pm with directions because he said he wanted to meet me at the hunting area, he replied back he could not make it and has never posted on the forum again. You know what the spot was. It was the exact spot in the first story, so I would have given it to him if he had just asked up front.

Lets see, I had a game warden tell me details where a forum member here hunts. I have had forum members wear out spots I have taken them, though I will admit it did not bother me because I probably told them I did not care if they hunted it on their own or not. But at the same time some of those have never invited me in return to hunt with them. And not at those very spots that I shared with them. I have had forum members tell me in conversation where other forum members were hunting. I have had a biologist mail me a map with every location where the hunters on her wma told her they hunted. One of the best duck hunting spots I ever had was from a Game Warden that told me he talked to two guys in a canoe who limited out in 15 minutes. He gave me directions down to the actual bar they parked the canoe to hunt from. I hunted it every year with a trusty friend and always did well until civilization took over that part of the lake.

Now I am not saying you should not take a new guy under your wing to help him into the sport. On the contrary. There are few mentors in this day to do such things. As a result we are a dying breed. But you do have to be careful how much you share up front until you know the person well. It is why the only real information you ever see posted on the migratory forum is nothing much more than a lake name and rarely if ever a spot, or a picture with identifiable landmarks. But for the lake name thing, I have shown how that information is not a secret.

Heck nearly every huntable lake surrounding the DFW area have DU chapters named after them!

Barney can come from anywhere, the ramp, the gas station, Cabela's, Academy or driving down the street.

I have a particular pond, private, that I leased as soon as the owner decided to lease it. Last fall he told me he had 6 or 7 people try to lease it for the following year. It sat unhunted for nearly 43 years until I convinced him to lease it to me. I didn't feel right hunting it and not "rewarding" the landowner properly.

So you are vulnerable no matter where you are, and that is the reason I have no stickers on either of my vehicles, they are usually a dead give away.

Several years ago I helped another duck hunter on ray bob with boat trouble. He was alone and had some ducks on the deck. He was very quiet and never really smiled, but probably due to his situation. I did finally break the ice though and learned that he had been hunting the lake for I think 5 years he said. He also said he hunted alone and never with another hunter during all that time. And it was not that it was because he enjoyed hunting alone, but because he did not trust anyone. He was so paranoid that someone would give up the spot or spots he was hunting that he only hunted alone. Seriously, true story, he may have been bs'ing, but it is what he told me.

I thought to myself, if I ever get to that point, I will give it up and take up golf or something instead.

Ain't that the truth on being vulnerable. I lost a deer lease at Eden due to some guys approaching the landowner and offering three times our lease payment. We could not match it. How they found us I don't know. Could have been at the local processor, taxidermist, or game warden or some of the guys hanging out in town.
But those rich fellas knew what we had before they leased us out.

Ya, but if you don't name them you are dissing the other half.

hahahahaha

Not really, I don't know of ANYBODY that gets mad when people don't name lakes, but ALOT of people do vice versa. I know I started this thread, but is there anybody else out there that would like to see this thread

It has always been a fact that people like to talk, people like to ask questions. Granted, the internet has helped others greatly in finding spots, but it has giving us the opporutnity to brag. The fishing forum has has the same effect on lakes, but we often fuel this.

I was told never tell them where you hunted or fished, or they would be knocking on the guys door asking if they can hunt or fish. I would always say, south of x, west of y, friends place etc. I used to duck hunt public water, but the limit was low and not many people hunted them then. WE packed decoys in on foot often and started early and never took anybody else though people wanted to go.

I was at my dog trainer over the weekend and there were some guys who talked about the Refuge and said they heard lake X was good, though they named it, then they talked about one where there was a fishing tourney opening weekend of teal season. The closer you live to urban lakes, the easier it is to hunt them and talking about them does not help. You can post photos of your hunt on four lakes that I know like the back of my hand and I can probably name that lake by the shoreline.

Its going to happen, people are going to talk about it, you choose not to and that is your way to protest it. I still do not take strangers duck hunting, they have to earn a trip and few do, it takes them years to get into the clique if you will. All because one jack leg in college went with us one weekend and called the land owner two weeks later and asked if he could come up. Answer was no, landowner told us, we ripped the guy several new ones and never talked to him again or asked him to go hunting again. Almost 20 years later, the guy still emails and says he will be in town x weekend and if we are going hunting he would like to go. He never gets a response.

Guess I don't understand the big deal. Maybe if they were small private ponds, ok, don't name them. We wouldn't want our maps listed as public somewhere....oh, wait, that happened already.

But really, saying "there's good duck hunting on lake kookamonga" probably doesn't send a boat load of extra people there. Now if you said on lake kookamonga 1.3 miles sw of the double bridges turn in at the power line crossing and go to ground at the orange juice jug on the branch... then maybe that's enough information.

My father in law was a fisherman... if you had asked him where he caught a fish, he'd stick his pinky in the corner of his mouth and say "right here".

But since we are naming lakes, I hear there are big bass in lake fork.

DAMMITTT Vernon!!! That's my secret hole!

how about we stop talking about this lake naming/decoy leaving crap and shoot some ducks already I guarantee you if you hunt public there's at least 1 if not more other persons that knows about your "spot." If you're place is that good and you get there early you won't have anything to worry about. Not saying I'm really for it, but not really against it.

Fowl, I love that idea. Could you tell me a good lake to go to? I'm really wanting to get started

LMAO you're funny. Yep Lake A should be good tomorrow. See ya there!

I'll be there around 6ish, have the coffee ready

Whoa there trigger. It was a joke.

+10 How can you stretch 6 pages out of this thread. Really? Just get there early and have fun. GHEEEESH!