Grand Opening — Top duck-hunting tips for opening-day success

Preseason preparation is the key to success when opening day of duck season arrives. Here are some tips on ensuring you’re ready to fill the strap.

The final minutes were counting down on the dawn of a new duck season. Visions of last season’s gray ducks hovering over the decoys had faded with time, and teal season was only a taste of what this hunter envisioned to satisfy his insatiable desire for the thrill of duck hunting.

Now was the moment of truth. Would his long hours of meticulous preparation for the duck season’s opener pay off? Would he head out of the marsh this morning with a heavy strap of prized ducks or be relegated to the group of head-shakers back at the boat launch making excuses?

The answer would soon be revealed.

He had selected a new spot to hunt this opening day. Even though he had this duck lease for many years, he had never hunted this particular locale.

It was an area of small, broken-up marsh area into which he had watched ducks dive into during the early season year after year.

It would be a mud flat during most of the season, but the early season’s high tides had flooded the area and created 6 inches of sheet water in which ducks love to feed.

He had decided to hunt there just a week earlier when he spotted several hundred teal lifting off during his final scouting expedition.

His blind was simply several bundles of bushes placed around the duck boat he drove into the middle of the flooded marsh. His decoys were spread out around his blind in small bunches where the broken marsh had openings.

This was not the traditional opening-day setup of hunting from permanent blinds on large ponds.

The silence in the predawn darkness was broken by the clumsy splashing down of coots in the decoys and fast-flying teal zipping by as they fled their nighttime roosts ahead of hunters making their way to their blinds.

A few early shots in the distance rang out from over-anxious hunters with a disregard for legal shooting time.

But, finally, the clock read 5:57 a.m. Legal shooting time had arrived.

The minutes that followed could only be described as “shock and awe,” with a barrage of surrounding gunfire and ducks flying in all directions.

The seasoned hunter never even reached for his gun as waves of ducks passed against the orange sky. He had seen many opening days, and knew that by waiting out the first few minutes of the chaos his hunt would be enjoyable, waiting for easy targets as the ducks settled down after the initial onslaught.

The hunter had picked the right spot for opening day. The teal he had observed the previous week were intent on returning to the broken marsh, and he and his partner picked out easy shots over the decoys.

By 7:30 a.m. they had their straps full with blue- and green-winged teal, shovelers, two mottled ducks and even a gray duck to round out the limit.

The hunter’s plan had come together, and this morning was a grand opening.

Perhaps the most-anticipated day of the year for waterfowlers is opening day. In Louisiana, it is truly magical, as our state winters more ducks than any other in the Mississippi flyway.

This year, coastal zone hunters will have to wait an extra week until Nov. 15 for the season to open as a result of hunter’s comments requesting a later season in this zone.

But this delay should result in an even better opening day than previous years, because the ducks will have an extra week to arrive in our marshes.

While there is great opportunity for spectacular hunts on opening day, preparation will separate the successful hunters from the casual shooters.

Being in the right place with the right setup is essential, because there is only one opening day each year and you do not want to miss out on what could be the best hunt of the season.

To find out how veteran duck hunters in our state approach opening day, I spoke with Warren Coco, owner of Go-Devil Manufacturers of Louisiana (who hunts in Southwest Louisiana), and Howard Callahan, who hunts the southeastern marshes near Caernarvon.

Here are their thoughts on having a successful opening day.

Warren Coco

• Find preferred duck foods

Warren Coco spends most of his time during duck season hunting the marshes of Cameron Parish. He is one of the best hunters in that area, and was happy to share some of his opening-day tips.

And his entire approach to killing limits centers around one factor, Coco said.

“It’s all about food,” he said. “Ducks will go to the most-preferred food sources that they can find. In our coastal marshes, its widgeon grass. In the more freshwater areas, it’s duck potato.

“If I find a spot that has a lot of widgeon grass, the ducks will come to it — and that’s where I will be on opening morning, and I usually don’t move much as long as the feed lasts, sometimes the whole season.”

Coco also urged hunters to be patient on opening morning.

“On opening morning, the hunters going out in the dark might chase out all the ducks in the area, and the ducks may go out on some big water and sit for a while. You may not see much early, but if you are on a good food source, the ducks will eventually come back to eat,” he explained. “I recommend staying until noon on opening morning if you do not kill your limit before then.”

And even the rice fields littering the Southwest Louisiana landscape will keep birds from returning to the marshes to eat.

“In our area, which is south of rice, the rice fields will be holding the majority of ducks before the season opens,” Coco said. “When the first shots are fired, everything changes and they head to the marshes.”

• Test and maintain your equipment

It’s obvious that duck hunting requires attention to equipment, but Coco said maintenance is sometimes overlooked in the anticipation of that first morning in the blind.

“The No. 1 thing for hunters to do to prepare for opening day is to get out and test run their boat on the water, under a load, at least three or four weeks before the season so that any problems can be fixed before the season,” he said. “All of the shops get very busy, and they may not be able to get to you if you come in too late.”

Many of the problems come from fuel left in a duck boat’s engine during the off season.

“The biggest problem we see is fuel,” Coco said. “The additives in the gas gums up the carburetor when the motor is sitting up. I recommend, at the end of the season, to treat your gas with fuel stabilizer, run it through the engine and then disconnect the fuel line until it runs out of fuel.

“Then run your motor several times during the off season, and you will never have a fuel problem.”

Coco also recommended siphoning out the bottom of your fuel tank once a year to remove water and other debris that collects.

Other items that should be performed annually include changing engine oil, oil filters and fuel filters, and checking fuel hoses and connections.

Proper lubrication also is critical, so the drive shaft should be greased every four or five trips. If you start losing grease, he said the cause is pretty straightforward.

“You probably have a bad seal or the shaft needs to be replaced,” Coco said.

He also suggested a great way to cut down on corrosion on your duck-hunting equipment.

“In Louisiana, we have cancer water — it eats everything up,” Coco explained. “What I have come up with is a simple formula of three parts WD-40 and one part Mobile One synthetic motor oil. Mix these together … in a spray bottle and spray the entire motor. It can also be used on the trailer winches and any part that can rust. We even use it on our guns.

“It takes about three applications to get a good film on everything, but that is the best thing that we have found in combating corrosion.”

Howard Callahan

• Scout for opening day

Howard Callahan can be found in the marshes of Caernarvon in Southeast Louisiana just about every day of the duck season, either guiding clients or taking friends.

He has hunted these marshes for years, and he rarely comes home empty-handed.

When asked how he selects an opening day spot to hunt, he did not hesitate.

“You have to scout,” Callahan said. “Get out the week before the season and find the areas where the ducks are feeding and resting. I also look for large concentrations of coots, because ducks will be in with them.

“I ride around my lease, and look for ducks getting up and feathers on the water.”

But scouting doesn’t mean running through your area the day before shooting starts.

“I will scout a few days before the season opens, and then let the area rest until opening morning,” Callahan said. “On opening morning you will find me in the area where I have seen the most ducks.”

And then he sticks with the area, regardless of his first-day hunt.

“Once I pick a spot for opening day, I will usually hunt there for the first few days of the season, even if I do not have a great hunt on opening day,” Callahan said. “The ducks sometimes get blown out of an area after opening day, but they usually return in a day or two to the areas they were in before the season opened.

“Do not give up on a good spot too early by jumping around.”

Callahan also looks for prime duck foods.

“The area around Caernarvon is a freshwater marsh, and we have a lot of duck potato growing. Ducks love this prime food, and those are the areas that I concentrate on,” he said.

Another big factor in a tidal marsh is water levels.

“The water levels really affect us here, and our area is silting in with the flow of the diversion,” Callahan said. “It is getting so shallow that I am being forced more and more to use my airboat instead of my mud boat.

“The perfect water level is 6 to 8 inches of sheet water over good feed. I have to move around to different areas as water levels fluctuate. Hunters in the marsh need to really pay attention to tides and hunt the areas that are the right depth for ducks to feed in.”

• Blinds and decoys

Callahan said options are important, so you can’t have too many blind locations ready to go for opening day.

He is a strict believer in being where the ducks are, and he sets up quite a few blinds in his area prior to the season so that when the ducks start moving around he has a blind close by.

“You have to be right where the ducks are working,” Callahan said. “Even 100 yards can be too far away. That is why I have a lot of blinds.

“Most are not elaborate — just some cut bushes and brush that I drive my mud boat into — and if I don’t have a blind set up in the area where the ducks are, I will bring in willows, mung bushes and canes on the morning of the hunt in order to hide my duck boat.”

Even with that meager camouflage, Callahan said he has great hunts.

“ If you keep still when the ducks are approaching, they will come in,” he explained. “It is better to be in the right place with a makeshift blind than to be in an elaborate blind watching the ducks drop into another area.”

Callahan hunts on fairly large water areas and likes to use a lot of decoys.

“I usually use at least five dozen decoys, and I really like to use at least two dozen coot decoys,” he said. “I also use some diver decoys because the white on the sides of the decoys shows up well from a distance.

“I use multiple spinning wing teal decoys, because it seems like the ducks are getting wise to just one spinner.”

• Equipment

Callahan is meticulous about his equipment. He has a 18-foot mud boat and an airboat. He prefers the ease of hunting out of the mud boat, but he will use the airboat and paddle to the blind in a pirogue when the water levels are low.

“Maintaining two boats is a lot of work,” Callahan said. “I go through everything on both boats, from the trailer to the engines, well before the season and make sure everything is in perfect order.

“The last thing I want to be doing during the season is fixing boats.”

And there are two pieces of safety equipment to which he pays lose attention every morning he leaves the dock.

“Everyone needs to make absolutely sure that their running lights are working before they leave the dock and make sure everyone is wearing a life jacket.” Callahan said.

About Capt. Steve Himel 70 Articles
Capt. Steve Himel has hunted and fished in Southeast Louisiana for over 45 years. He operates Marshland Adventures, LLC and has been a freelance outdoor writer for the past 16 years. He is a member of the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association.