We began our last discussion on getting better at passing shots. And we say “began” because the passing shot is deemed the most difficult shot since the gun must be farther in front of the target than the flushing shot.
Perhaps the birds that hunters have the most experience with are doves or ducks. We talked about doves in our last installation, and there is an endless amount of information about shooting doves. But we also need to include ducks and pigeons and how the wind affects their flight path and changes the strategy of how you approach these shots.
First, let’s talk about ducks and the things we have learned in shooting and coaching hunters to be better at shooting them.
The first and biggest thing to put the odds in your favor of getting good shots at ducks is investing in a face mask and actually going to the sporting range to shoot in it. There are a variety of face masks on the market. If you wear glasses, you need to be aware that some of them will cause your glasses to fog up due to their design. And ducks are hard enough to hit when you can see them! The real show when hunting ducks is what is happening before the command to shoot is given. Your choice is to watch the incredible display of birds coming into the decoys by using a face mask, or keep your head down until the shot is called and try to make something of the chaos when they flare.
Being able to see the birds coming into the decoys allows for many things to occur, all of which gives the advantage to the hunter. The most obvious to us is that the birds seem to be slower because you are watching them come in all the way. When the shot is called, everything will appear to be moving much slower. If you are waiting for the shot to be called with your head down to hide your face so the birds will come in, when the shot is finally called and you look up to see the ducks, everything is moving. Focusing on one duck is so much more difficult.
At the end of the day, to hit a moving object with a shotgun, you must be able to see it. This is probably the most difficult part of being successful when shooting ducks because they usually come in as a flock. Then the first shot is fired and chaos occurs. This is another reason why when ducks come in as a single or a pair they are more easily taken with fewer shots; there is so much less confusion.
We have advised countless hunters when they are out preparing their duck blinds to do the following: Before the season, go to the blinds without a gun and put some decoys out. Actually watch ducks come in to the decoys and observe what happens when they stand up. Without exception, the ones who actually do this call us and say that they have never see this happen. They are amazed at how slow the ducks really are and how much easier it is to focus on a single duck in the flock.
Try this the next time you are out in the duck blind and have your limit: unload your shotgun and keep calling the ducks and actually watch the birds come in and just see what they do when you stand up. Then keep your head down while someone else calls and have them tell you when to look up or stand up and notice the difference. You will find that you’re able to watch the birds come in. There will be chaos, but it will seem like more organized chaos. And notice how things are really in slow motion compared to how it looked when you kept your head down and looked up when you stood up.
All of this is enabled by a simple $10 facemask. And did we mention that you should buy several of them, try them on, and actually go shoot with them? What we have done is found the one that works best for each of us and gone back and bought several. While you probably will never wear one out, they do tend to get lost. Having another one you know will work the night before the hunt is reassuring, to say the least.
So for duck hunting, it is about concealment to get the ducks in range then it is about focusing on only one bird, and then it becomes getting the bird ahead on line.
This brings us to the one thing that made a huge difference in our shooting on ducks – and pigeons, for that matter. The ducks are descending when coming to the decoys, and typically when they realize their predicament they begin to flee. Ducks don’t flee the decoys going to the left or right; they will always be rising as they flee. But if you are an avid clay shooter, because there is so much going on, your miss will typically be underneath. You see the line as straight left or 9 o’clock or straight right at 3 o’clock and that line will seldom kill a duck. You will find that going to 10 o’clock or 2 o’clock on the fleeing bird will create more consistency.
We were at Tomas Frontera’s duck lodge Veracruz near the Parana River in Argentina this past summer and this lesson was learned again by Gil on the first hunt. He had a pretty hard time killing a duck on the second shot. And thank God for the ShotKam, because when we got back to the lodge and downloaded the videos, we both realized when viewing the footage that almost all his misses were underneath on the second shots. That was valuable information for him, which transformed his results on the following hunts.
So we have talked about finding a face mask that works, practicing wearing your face mask, and buying more than one when you find one that works. And fleeing ducks don’t fly to the left or right but they are always ascending as they flee, so they are rising not just crossing. We have talked about actually sitting in the blind and observing flocks of ducks coming in to the decoys with you face mask on to actually see what they do when you stand up and flare them.
To do something well, you must have done it many times, just like we have mentioned over and over in our columns in the past: practice your gun mount and the sight pictures to improve your consistency with your shotgun. Well, just watching flock after flock of ducks come in to the decoys is invaluable when it comes to anticipating what is about to happen when the shot is called.
Here’s something that not many hunters know: as a flock comes in when the shot is called, if you will shoot at the birds at the top of the flock, your follow-up shots will be easier because the birds are coming up to you. This will set you up for the least amount of movement with your eyes and the least amount of movement with the gun. At the same time, it will slow everything down. All these things are good and will improve your shooting percentage. Another things that is seldom mentioned but is critical to hunter safety would be to all agree that you are either going to shoot from a seated position or a standing position. The worst-case scenario would be for a short hunter to shoot seated and tall hunters next to him/her stand up to shoot! Just like in other hunting situations, safety is always your primary consideration.
Our last tip for this segment is to look at the heads of the duck as you are mounting your gun just in front and on line. You will find in shooting decoying ducks or pigeons their heads are typically pointed where they are heading, which puts you on the line from the get-go. The one exception, which you will see a lot in Pigeon hunting, is when the birds are hovering over the decoys about to land. Look at their feet and shoot just under them with very little lead, because they are not going very fast!
