re: Duck boats in Venice....

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We camp out down there.

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Welp, I'm out.

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What time do ya'll leave in the mornings to make the run downriver, then to your spot and be set up for daylight?

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I know a guy who is set up down there for like 4:00 am or some crazy shite like that. And yea, they run the river in a duck boat. They do generally kill a lot of ducks. But I frequently let him know he's a moron

He a geologist?

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I have a question. What time do ya'll leave in the mornings to make the run downriver, then to your spot and be set up for daylight?

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We have a camp down river, and I will typically only set up before daylight if it is an opening weekend or a Holiday and I know exactly how/where I want to set up. Figuring out the tides, paying attention to the hourly forecast, and watching where the birds want to be before you set up is much more important than being set up at daylight. The tides will usually keep birds flying all day down there.

Push Poling a couple hundred yards across a mudflat in the dark only to realize you set up 75yds from the X after daylight will make you slow down and take your time choosing a spot to hunt.

One morning a few years ago I was planning on hunting an area on the federal that required crossing a huge mudflat. Since the tide was rising in the AM, we took our time and ate breakfast before getting out there. The water was still a little shallow so we rode around the state side scouting birds for the following day. A federal agent stopped us on our way back in at 10am (you have to stop hunting the fed at 12pm and be off it at 1), made a crack about us sleeping in then searched the entire boat looking for any mud that would indicate we had made an early morning hunt and were double dipping. After he realized my dog was clean he let us go. By then we were able to float across the flat, set up and killed a limit in under an hour.

We usually get to the launch at 3:30 and are entering the delta at 4am (the earliest you can legally enter). This past weekend, the water was so low that we drug our pirogues for several hundred yards through the mud to where we could finally paddle to our spot. We were set up about 15-20 before shooting time.

You shut your whore mouth bisquit.



Yep, 12th one down on the right.

A few things...

1. Cutting across Main pass as a shortcut bad idea as Delta prohibits mud motors but I haven't seem anyone enforcing anything there in a while.

2. Hunting Delta I am normally there and set up well before daylight early season. Later on typically there is less pressure and I leave the camp in Boothville about 530 to go launch. If hunting further south I rarely set up before daylight I love the lazy mans hunt!

3. The shortcut Grand pass to zin zin is great used it for years there is a sunken wellhead in the general area you take for the short cut KNOW where that is!!!!

4. Saturday was something we didn't even go do the camp until the morning. Left the camp at 1 pm it was still brutal winds. I know many that have hunted longer than I have that didn't go out that day.

Other than a S wind a NNW wind makes the entire river a shite show. NNE-E calm on east side but sometimes getting to the east side is a challenge.

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We usually get to the launch at 3:30 and are entering the delta at 4am (the earliest you can legally enter).

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Almost 2.5 hours before shooting time, now that's early.

I usually leave Venice by 4am. With how crowded it has gotten down there, I try to get out there early. Venice seems to get more crowded every year. And with the invention/popularity of the surface drive mudboat, the ducks don't have many places to rest but the federal. I remember when I could get out there at daylight or a little earlier and pretty much pick whatever spot I wanted to go. Now the launches have shuttle services for people to get to their truck on opening day.

If I have my pick I like to leave the launch after eating breakfast and hunt PAL get set up for about 8 and have at it.

One day.... I am going to do the same thing but do it on delta and just get there when I can take someone else's spot when they are done. One day I will realize this is the best option.