BIG FOOT DECOYS

Hello fellow junkies. Just got back from a visit to the Big Foot decoy factory in Clinton, Iowa. It was crazy there today as hundreds of blue geese were being painted and shipped all over the country! Art Ladehoff has a very simple and highly functional factory. He does one thing and does it well. He makes the worlds best decoys. Added to the famous Canada goose decoys including full bodies, floaters and the new shells are also field mallards and floating mallards as well. What you might not know is that Big Foot sells a ton of speckled belly full bodies as well as blue and snow geese. There were literally thousands of boxes being ready to be shipped while I was there. I watched part of the painting process, the packing and even some assembly. For you fellow BigFoot fans, a new web site is in the works as well as some other surprises.

BIGFOOT DECOYS SHELL SHOCKED!

BY: JIM CROWLEY



Bigfoot decoys have and continue to be the decoy by which all others are measured. They are the most durable by far and the United States as well as Canada are covered with them. No one at BigFoot including owner and waterfowl icon Art Ladehoff will ever settle for second best. So when I tell you we put these shells through some of the windiest and coldest days I can remember on a trip to Manitoba last October, you can be rest assured they were put through the ringer! What we found were shells that were well designed and did not "roll over" in the wind. We never chased one of these shells anywhere. Two models are available. The resting shells are beautiful with flocked heads and tail feathers. They can be easy and securely stacked. In the field they were incredibley life like and added demension to our full body set up. The resting heads up shell has a detachable head, stackable shell and other heads from Bigfoot full bodies can be matched to this shell. An excellent feature to mix and match shells and full bodies. As with all BigFoots they are extremly durable with excellent paint schemes including superior attention to detail in areas like the breast, head and feather layering. The new BigFoot shells stand Head and Tail feathers above all the rest. Once you see them, you'll be shell shocked! www.bigfootdecoys.com

DUCK AND COVER

by: Jim Crowley
http://www.hookandhunttv.com/

If your like me, you live for the sound of those wings and the sight of those ducks coming into your spread. You watch your dog as she watches the ducks make their final approach. Being a member of DELTA WATERFOWL has given me a sincere appriciation for the work they do. They are not about fancy buildings and high dollar clothing. They are about preserving and enriching our resouce. They are about the ducks. With that being said, I am a proud member of Delta Waterfowl. To see why, please check out the newest weekly segment on http://www.hookandhunttv.com/ with DELTA WATERFOWL'S regional Director Scot Berg.

Early Goose Opener

If you are reading this, you know this past weekend was the opener for early goose, and although the excitement was high, results were low. I went out on Saturday morning with high hopes of a great opener but was forced to settle with sun burn. I took my father in-law and brother to a family farm about 25mi south east of Alexandria MN. The field had been cut and picked but cover was good. At sun up we heard one round of shooting in the distance, and that was it for the day. I brought some training dummies and ran drills with the dog so that he wouldn't be so bored. At 11:00 I called around to some buddies in various parts of the state to find that their hunts were as dismal as mine.
On Sunday we went to another relative's farm by Melrose MN. The week before I scouted this field and it had been cut and picked and the winter wheat had just started growing. After hearing of geese being on the Sauk River the day before I thought it would be perfect. When we got there and started carrying the gear in I noticed in my headlamp that the wheat looked like it had grown. Too close to shooting time I carried on. We set up and my brother took a cart to cut some cover grass while my father in-law and I set up decoys. In the dark the Shells seemed to deep in the grass but in the dark I thought that it would be ok. When the sun broke we started seeing birds. My brother and I drew in some geese from way out but we where just to far outside of the flight path. Several other flocks were in the area but none were very aggressive in pursuing a feeding spot. Then the jack pot! Or so I thought. The was a pond about 1 mile due north, where we were facing, that was holding geese. When they got up they started flying straight at us. I started into a short "domestic dispute" routine and they broke apart and started dumping air. Here we go! 30 geese are looking like they are locked on about 150 yards out. When they stared to fly again, I hit them with another short routine and they started to turn. When I looked to my right I saw that my father in-law had fallen asleep with the hood of his power hunter open! I yelled for him to wake up and was unable to recover the birds. They had made a hard left and were out. Another day without a bird.
On Monday morning I could not get my father in-law out of bed, so it was just my brother and I. We went to the same field but set up in the fresh cut part of the field and at sun up we discovered that someone was hunting the farm next to us. Not because we could see them, because we couldn't, but because the flutes they were blowing were soooo bad!. Any little bird movement and the flutes were going a hundred miles an hour. Sad part is that there were about 200 geese that roosted with the cattle all night in that field and all they did was scare them away!
Hopefully the weather is not so nice and the birds are moving this weekend. Just need to remember that less calling at this time of the year is better. Let the decoys do the work when they are young and dumb.....As long as they are not buried in the tall, freshly sprayed with fertilizer, field.

WELCOME!

This blog is dedicated to bird hunters of all types; duck, geese, turkey, pheasant, grouse... even crow!! Visit this blog for website links to all types of fowl hunting and open discussions about calls, dogs, guns/shells, clothing, blinds, techniques, migration, regulations and more. Share your knowledge and build your knowledge here!

From Wikipedia:

Waterfowl hunting (also called duck hunting, goose hunting, or wildfowling) is the practice of hunting ducks, geese, or other waterfowl for food and sport. (In the U.K. the word "hunting" is not used, but "shooting"; the word hunting is reserved for the pursuit of prey with hounds.) In many western countries, commercial waterfowl hunting is prohibited, and duck hunting is primarily an outdoor sporting activity.

Many types of ducks and geese share the same habitats, have overlapping or identical hunting seasons, and are hunted using the same methods. Thus is not uncommon to take several different species of waterfowl in the same outing.