What Actually Makes a Great Duck Hunter

What actually makes a great duck hunter? In this episode we break down the things that go beyond just pulling the trigger  mindset, preparation, scouting, consistency, boat setups, shooting, calling, and the discipline it takes to keep improving. Duck hunting is about the work before the hunt, the lessons learned along the way, and staying hungry every season.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Alright, everybody, thanks for joining me on the Duck Dependent Podcast, episode 21. Fired up as usual to be here. Guys, the off-season is flying by. But this episode is going to be called What Actually Makes a Great Duck Hunter? And I'll go into the details about that. I got this idea, so thank you for the listeners and people that are continuing to follow me. It was just an idea from somebody who reached out, and I think it's a great idea, guys. It's just going to be in my opinion about what actually makes a great duck hunter on the public land side. But before I dive into that, I got to get to the partners. They make this thing go. Retail USA, guys. I've said it before. My favorite shotgun. I'm not sure how you don't look at it for the quality and the price point. My favorite Retay Ace guy, I put us, guys, I put it to the test all last year. 20 gauge. I just got a new one. A beautiful bottom lands with bronze barrel, two-tone, 28-inch barrel, guys. Retail USA. Go check them out. Flight Day ammunition, guys. Premium product. I always put them on paper. And guys, they simply perform. The consistency, the pattern down range, the premium steel, the max payload. My favorite. 20 gauge, 3 inch, number six. Ben is doing a phenomenal job with Flight Day. Guys, I actually, the new boxes they put out are amazing. Everything about Flight Day and the steel and the product is premium. You can save some money at checkout with DD10. Go check them out, guys. Season is right around the corner. Get your steel, get your couple cases, save some money at checkout with DD10. And then Bucked Up, guys, an energy drink company, a do-all company. They make everything from post pre-workout. They're right here in my backyard in Utah. I'm going to be living off these things here pretty soon, the energy drink wise. My favorite flavor is Miami Vice. You can go to their website and save some money with checkout DD10. Guys, go check out BuckedUp. Save some money with DD10. And then DD hats, guys. Can't do this without it. DuckDependant.shop. We just restocked. We've got all the lids on the website available. Go check them out. If you sign up, you get 15% off your first order. And guys are doing great. So thank you for that support. But we want to spread the word. There's nothing wrong with having a good lid year-round. And then Leshwab tires, guys, we're traveling. It's that off season. My favorite tire, the Open Range Plus, the Do-all tire, guys, they make tons of tires. Good, better, best. Go check them out. This is the scouting season, the vacation season, the little league season, whatever it is. They'll dial you in for the road for that road trip. And guys, let's hop into it. So, what actually makes a great duck hunter? Okay, so a few things I want to talk about. Mindset, scouting, weather, consistency, your boat setup, maybe shooting, calling, the discipline, in my opinion, on what it takes to be a successful waterfowler. And once again, I'm going to thank the listener out there who gave me this idea, who just said, hey man, I want you to shoot it straight, talk about it. What's your thought? Okay, so I'm going to dive right into what I think it is, and it's the mindset. Number one, and you guys know this a lot of things about life. It's the mindset. And for me, you learn these things over the years, right? You get better, you improve, or we hope we do. And for me, the mindset is how do I stay positive? It's not a cliche, guys. I promise you. If you can be positive more times than not, that initial mindset is what's going to help you prevail and be successful. And I'm going to dive into a lot of these. But it starts there. That's what I believe what makes a great duck hunter, right? Is going into the field with a positive mindset. Hey guys, regardless of what's going to happen today, we're going to have a good time. I got my cousin. I got my buddy. Let's go chase ducks. And what better way? And what how do you not have that mentality, guys, with with some of the great public land um opportunities we have? And we want to keep that going across the entire United States on just go find a local marsh and chase birds. And so I think when we start talking about mindset, that positive part of it, I believe you have to have that in your your tool belt to be a great duck hunter. And once again, I'm gonna I'm probably the last time I'm gonna say it, but I just want to remind everybody, this is just my opinion. You know, we're we're not ball players where there's a scorecard where you can bat 300 or you can throw passing yards and you can be critiqued to in in that you know in like a sports area where you're good or you're not. But anyways, this is just my thought. I want to make that clear. I'm not defining that for anybody. This is just what I think it takes and what I've tried to do and instill in anybody around me, friends or family, whether I'm a mentor or getting mentored. Uh this is just the stuff that I talk about when it comes to duck hunting, right? And it's mindset. Um the discipline, okay, guys, the discipline to continue to find that drive and that desire, man, is would like anything in life, you guys and girls are really successful in your career, and sometimes or most of the time, it's probably not luck, right? It's that discipline. You keep showing up, you keep improving, whether it's you know, education formally or education on the job, whatever it is, you keep showing up, and it's discipline to keep being consistent and being reliable and dependable. Well, guys, I take that for duck hunting too. You have to be disciplined, man. And um, I don't know if it's an age thing or not, but I learned early on to keep that discipline is to there's some sacrifice involved, right? And so um, you know, when we talk about we got to get up early, public land's an early grind, man, and staying up late or or uh doing those things or maybe having too many adult beverages, which once again not judging, I'm just saying it makes it so much harder to keep your discipline. So um it's easy for me because I'm not kind of that style uh really on that those kind of things, but you know, I think about it, hey, if you're taking your family, your son, whoever it is, your wife to dinner, you're going to meet with your family. I always really try to uh do that earlier than later and go ahead and make those plans and so that you can get a good night's sleep. And when I say a good night's sleep, it's still probably only four or five, maybe six hours if you're lucky, right? Because you do want to do those things. And I'm not speaking for everybody, but a lot of people chase on the weekend and or whatever the day, you know. And so those are the two big things for me is discipline and that positive attitude. And then look, we can just talk about some of the things that I think uh what really makes a great duck hunter, and uh what I've learned over the years of of doing this and talking with people, and then I want to talk a real world experience on my end is what everyone talks about, but it's no secret, it's no lie, it's nothing. It simply starts with scouting, right? And what I mean by that is success. If we want to define that by numbers, like I said, uh getting lots of birds, your groups um have having the opportunity to harvest lots of birds, you're getting your limit, that's fine. We can define it for this podcast. I'm not saying that's everything, but let's let's do that just for this podcast, okay? Scouting, you guys have heard it a million times. There is absolutely no secret about it. You have to be relentless to find those birds. Now, I'll be the first one to admit there's days where I don't find birds, but I'm a duck hunter and I want to get out, so I'm gonna go on based off my historical knowledge and data that I've documented to say, okay, I don't have them, I can't find them, but the weather's doing this. Let's go, okay, let's go look at the river here, let's go look at the this bay here, whatever it is. And so um, but we have to hone in on that. And the success that's happened for me, my team, the group, is scouting has just been a huge part in that. Man, we all go our separate ways, we pick different regions when we're together, and just try to figure it out. But scouting to me, if you can figure out the scouting game, and you know, there's there's lots of opinions and and thoughts on the tactics of when to scout and do that. I I'm not even here to debate that. What I want to tell you guys is just get out, get the put the miles on the on your feet, put the miles on your tires, and just go see what you can see. And I think uh that will absolutely set you up moving forward to just be better. And so uh scouting has been phenomenal for us because I can't say it enough. We just keep pushing and our group is relentless on it, and so I'm so thankful to be able to articulate that and talk about it because I have a lot of people. Well, how do you do it? That's it, guys. There's no secret. It is literally foot pounding and driving all over the dang west or all over your region to just try to set up a better situation, right? It's always good because I get to go duck hunt and I get to be on public land and hunt with the people I want. That's that's the that's the bear thing. But if you want to keep going to that better best, scouting absolutely has to be a part of it, and that's what one thing I'm not gonna relax on. And then when it comes to I want to talk about, we'll leave the boat setup stuff for last because I've talked about that quite a bit on the last couple podcasts and put some stuff out on social media. Um, but let's talk about shooting and calling. And here's the thing that I absolutely love to do is you know, I like to shoot a lot of clays, and I've heard some people talk about, hey, that's not relatable for me, ducks don't do that. And what I want to just uh remind people is is it's just muscle memory though, as well, guys. Like shouldering your gun, hitting the safety, loading it, and it's something that's really fun to do, and in my opinion, I don't think you can shoot too much, guys. I don't think like my goal every year is to shoot two cases of of clay ammo every year to just be familiar. And whether you're buying a new gun or not, you know, just that muscle memory. Every time I shoot and I come back down safety, take the say all that stuff to make sure your gun's running smooth and all those things. Um, and so shooting to me is a big thing, left to right. Um now, you know, nowadays you can go to different stands and and you can do trap shooting, you can do different kinds of things. So I do all that just to say sharp. You know, for me it's like driving a car. It doesn't hurt you to just, you know, drive a car and stay consistent with you know everyday things. So I treat shooting as a real vital importance to the offseason. And I know lots of guys are like, hey, I don't really shoot, I'm a great shot. And you know what? That's for you. I I I won't argue with you, I won't debate you that you're a great shot or anything, but for me, for the mindset, muscle memory, the swing, um, I have to consistently shoot. And uh to be honest, I want to shoot. It's a fun thing. It's I I am a duck hunter, I'm a wing shooter, and so it's fun to me. And it's also you can get a group together, um, and you can go do a lot of shooting and make a little, you know, fun little competitions about it. And so I just I think some of these things that we're talking about really makes a great duck hunter is is the ability to shoot well, um, be safe, be consistent with your weapon. And in this case with the Ritay Ace, you know, um, I want to be, you know, it came from a mur a movie, but I want to be surgical with it. I want to be knowing whatever side of the blind on, you know, it's a big responsibility if I'm on the left side or the right side, especially if you're an end guy, right? I'm usually on the end because I have a dog as well. But I want to make sure that we I live up to my end of the blind, right? When six, seven birds come in, eight birds come in, there's three or four shooters. I want to make sure nothing gets out on the left. I did my part. And so that's why I think shooting is a big, a big part of that. And then uh one of the the last ones I would I would want to talk about or uh hone in on is calling, right? And we're all at different stages of you know, expert, uh beginner, you know, intermediate, all that stuff. I don't even know how to say that or rank that because I'm not a contest caller. Um I have done some some small homegrown contest calls just to see, and you know, I got my butt kicked in there, but I wanted to go see, you know, nothing nothing special about it. But what I would say about calling is I think that there's always discussion on hey, it you really don't have to be a good caller, you just need to know when to call them. I I won't disagree with anybody who says that or believes that or lives that, but what I would say is it's really okay to continue to progress yourself on the duck call, and even if you're not gonna use everything in the field, I just don't see how it hurts to have the ability to try different things if that makes sense, right? So um, you know, over the years, and I I was just talking to my cousin about this or um a buddy of mine, maybe, about man, I early on in my career, uh, I would say um like I had an arsenal of different calls, right? All the the comebacks, the greeter, the stage feed call, the chuckle, the to me, the the corn feed, the cookah feed call, all the way down to the bouncing hen. I love the bouncing hen, and we all have opinions on that. And I just think that to have all those in your belt is a real confidence thing when you go to the field, right? Even to this day, I was just what I mean is when I was just talking about this, I don't even use a lot of that stuff anymore. Um, like the bouncing hen to me, when I hear them in the field do that, they're really telling other birds to stay away when they do that, uh, when they're feeding. So I'm not saying that's a bad thing because you know ducks are active and social pe uh not people, uh social animals. And so I've kind of gone away from the bouncing head. Once again, not saying it's a bad call or a good call, but I I do have it in the arsenal though, and I do have these different uh all the different uh feed calls and the chuckles, uh, but really I've really uh agreed with something I said earlier that I've talked to a lot of people is the timing of the call, right? And so when to hit them on the corners, uh how they're reacting would would I'm really honing in on that um lately, but it does not hurt to continue to practice calling. It really doesn't. Even turkey calling, I just went turkey for the last 20 years and uh was really struggling to get back into you know learning how to call and I had some guys calling with me and just from me just from them being I would say a little bit better than me really enhanced that hunt and and and gave us that confidence. So I would say duck calling, guys, don't quit on it and just continue to try to improve, um, even if it's just a few a few comebacks, a few chuckles, the hell call, whatever it is, hone in on that and try to get real excellent on a few of them at least, and then expand from there. Um, but you know, just to be fully transparent and honest, that yeah, I've dialed it back over the years, um, and and just really trying to read ducks, and it and I'm gonna kind of phase into that. That's a big part of of what I believe uh you know makes a great duck hunter is being able to read them, and that takes time and it takes experiences and failures and successes to get that. So um from almost every hunt you can pick up that day of what they're gonna do and what they want to do, but being able to read that for the day and to lower your ego or whatever that is to say, nope, I'm gonna just blast and I like the hail call, and that's it, that's what it is. Um, I think that's being versatile makes that uh and you know, make you a really good duck hunter. And and I can talk to that. There's been years in the past that I love the call, man. It sounds amazing, it's a great tool. You get you can manipulate these birds to what you want, but what I've learned probably heavy in the last five years, even, is that when to change volume, when to change calls, because I've hunt I hunt with a lot of I would say good callers. And what I've learned is just by listening, I don't have to say anything, just by listening is you can kind of hear how their style is in this is my opinion on how far they're into their career. Because when I what I mean by that is I'll hunt with people that have a certain volume, and whether the ducks are you know 150 yards away to 80 to 60 yards, that volume is still like really high. Now it sounds really good, so I'm not gonna debate or question anybody. Who who am I to say anything about that, right? Um, but I've noticed uh people that have kind of the light switches turned on is like, oh, we can change the volume. Yeah, we yeah, you can. And and you should, right, based on on the on the birds move moving. So sorry to ramble on on that, but that that's really important to me, and I think it's a big thing calling. Um, you know, we talked about mindset, scouting, discipline. Um one big thing that I learned um and I'm continuing to check myself is it has to do with I think your pride, your ego, or you want it your way. And what I've learned is as soon as you let that go, you can go to new heights with duck honey. And that might be in life. If you let that down a little bit, you might be if you're able to listen and learn, um, and you don't have to do things verbatim on someone's opinion or thought, hey, I think we should do this and this, but I'm gonna give you a story real quick, okay? So it was about 14 years ago or 13 years ago, I relocated, okay. I moved to Utah, and just you know, I met some kind of new guys, and and the light switch, and I'm thankful that the light switch turned for me there because I believe that I was a little bit similar that way. I wasn't absolute, but this is what I'll say. So I moved and we were just kind of talking about ducks and and you know, oh, where you know, where is your background? Where have you hunted? What do you, you know, what do you like to do? Are you a river guy, uh a slug guy, whatever? And I just noticed that this one particular gentleman was just like absolute, said some things that I thought were off the wall, which I'm sure we've all said things that people think off the wall, but there was just some absolutes where I'm not gonna give any names, but he was like, Hey, in this state you only use, we only use baby mojos. And I was just like, What? Like, I thought he was joking, we're kidding, and he really wasn't. He said that with validity and passion, like, no, this is what you have to do, and I've just I haven't lived by that or heard that. Now, there's tendencies that we all like to do. Hey, I like to run a jerk string, or I do like a mo, you know, a lucky duck, a mojo, whatever the thing, whatever the brand is, but um I've just never heard someone speak so absolute, right? And then I just kind of reflected and was like, man, I never want to say that or come across that. There is tendencies, like I said, I do like to run um spinning wing decoys and those things. That that is a part of the arsenal, and I like to pull them too. And uh, and um there was just some things like that of like, hey, I only hunt this at certain times of the day, and and and that could be local knowledge, and I won't debate anybody on that. I just meant that that the way that was portrayed to me was just like an absolute fact. And you guys know whether you're deer hunting, elk hunting, duck hunting, there's some tendencies that we like to do, there's some things that we've done and found success. So sure, you want to go back to those. But there is really nothing absolute with chasing wild creatures, there's just not. And so uh for me, uh, to get back to what I was saying, when you lower that the the your your your way and the ego and all that, I think once you lower that you can have conversation. It happened uh in a turkey hunt. We had some ideas to stay, to go, to keep moving, and it was a collaborative environment, and we got turkey, or we got a turkey, excuse me. And I do that with uh duck hunting too. We have conversation, we're all experienced hunters, and we have conversation, and sometimes I don't make the call on everything. Um, but if you have a group to say, all right, hey, you know what, Dion, you made the call last time, it was success. We're gonna roll with you again, right? You're hot right now, we're gonna do that. And so that's it's some kind of some fun things as well, goes with that. But there's other times where I'm like, hey, you know what? I can't figure it out. We're obviously not coming to agreement, and this might not be forever to be honest, just flip a coin, man. I'm good with it. Just flip a coin if you want to go left or right. And so we have fun with that. Or sometimes I say, All right, make the call. Or, you know, if it's my turn to make the call because I scouted, or whatever it is, I just think that once you alleviate that, well, it has to be this, I won't, it's got to be your way. I think that takes you to a new level, especially when you have a really good group of guys or or girls or whoever's in there who's working their tail off too. I mean, there's nothing worse than you're working your tail off, and every time it's like, no, we're not doing that. It just gets old, it's not fun, and you learn those things over the years. So for me, you just you have conversations with your buddies and your and you, whoever it is, your son, your cousin, and that's what we've done. And guys, I'm telling you, the last couple years it's been amazing. That's what we're doing. Let's be collaborative, and you're probably gonna hear me say that a hundred times, but let's do that, check your ego, go have just we're out there to kill birds, we're out there to have fun, uh, we're out there to run the boat. I I love you're out there to get blue, and so that for me is kind of the icing on the cake. When you can get to that, you know, uh, between some of the things we talked about, I believe that's what makes a great duck hunter is having those traits, right? We talked about being positive, talked about scouting, um, always staying on your shooting game, your calling game, the discipline of what it takes to go public land day after day after day. And then this one I think is is just being open minded and being able to have a conversation. So uh with some of those things, guys, we can talk about boat setups. I've kind of done that on a lot of on a lot of podcasts. But you know, get the most or the best reliable biggest boat you can. And I don't know, I don't mean that's a 28-footer, but um, you know, get the if it's a 12-footer and you're hunting backwater, that's fine. Get the safest, biggest, most reliable boat you can. Um, you know, they all work and you can make things happen, and I think can get you on more birds. Um for me, I love XL, I love Mud Buddy, so that's an easy pick for me. Um but one thing I don't want to leave off, and I saved it for last, is it we we kind of talked a little bit about it, but being resilient, right? And I kind of talked about that maybe a little bit, but resiliency is key. And and I know you guys know this, and I think a lot of us do it in life, but being resilient to some of the hiccups that you're gonna have in the season and being able to bounce back, I think is huge as a public land duck hunter because there's days that you're gonna get beat and you're not gonna get spot one, two, or three or A, B, or C. But can you handle that? Can you take that in stride? Doesn't mean you can't be mad, doesn't mean you can't be upset about it for the moment. But are you resilient enough to move past that? Right? Because we've all lived that, man. I've I've had people in town where you're scouting and you might not get the spot or someone sets up too close, and yeah, you're ticked at the moment, but what I've caught myself is and wanting to improve is all right, snap out of it, man. Let's just go to a new area, let's find more birds, let's find a different spot, let's go hunt. Right? I stayed, in my opinion, I was resilient or showed resiliency. So it's the same thing. I know when I travel and I go hunt with great friends and my family, you know, they're they're they're amped up, man. They they they're pumped up. I'm in town, we're gonna go chase, it's gonna be hard uh to find birds, you know, whatever it is, and and if we get beat, but I've noticed that they're all doing that now. They're just like rolling with the punches, and it's not gonna keep you down if you get beat or if we don't find the birds. And so to me, that's kind of that that last one that kind of culminates in my opinion on on uh you know what makes a great duck hunter, guys. So I talked a lot about all the things, the good makeup, but the good uh the good and the bad and all that, but what I'm really trying to say is I think if you're always trying to improve on any of the things that I talked about, or you have your own list, if you're trying to improve on it, you're staying open-minded, you're staying collaborative, you're being resilient, you're being relentless, and you show some discipline, meaning I gotta go to bed early, I gotta get up, I gotta keep my word. And if I don't, hey, I gotta let the people know I can't go. All those things, however you want to rank them or rate them, but I think if you make a big pot of stew, that's gonna make you a great hunter, a great outdoorsman, a great friend, a great buddy, whatever it is in life, I think it transfers to everything. And it just means a lot to me that I can continue to improve on that, right? Because we're not batting a thousand, but I want to. Um, so how do I get there? And that's constant reflection, self-checking, and uh, you know, being a good steward to your friendship and your relationships. And so with that, man, I'm so thankful that that guy reached out and um I think he's right here in the state of Utah and just said, hey, can you help me define in your opinion, Dion, what's a great duck hunter? And and I hope I did that today. Once again, um, if you ever want something on this podcast, just reach out to me at DuckDependent on Instagram or anywhere, TikTok, Deon DuckDependent, look it up. I'm so thankful for it. The offseason's grinding, guys, and I want to keep going. And so with that, I got to get to the partners one more time. They are helping this thing go. Retay USA, guys, baddest inertia shotgun on planet earth, flight day ammunition, premium steel. Save some money at checkout with DD10, bucked up. My favorite energy drink. I said earlier, Miami Vice is the favorite flavor. You can go get anything you need. Check out DD10, Leshwab tires, good, better, best. To me, the best service and the best tire in the game. And then DD hats, guys. Working hard to keep them in stock. They're all in stock. Go save some money with your if you subscribe, you get 15% off. I've really working on shipping costs. We flat rated it, guys. We're working hard. Man, I'm thankful for this one, and I'll catch you on the next one.