What shotguns are the serious duck hunters using

[Shadow]

I don't hunt ducks much, actually don't bird hunt much period. I like to go when I have the opportunity, and I especially like dove hunting. A guy at work is a huge duck hunter, and is always reading the duck forums. I see a lot of arguing about which guns are good. I was just wondering what you guys were using. I shot a model 1100 groing up, but I bought one of the first 3.5" Mossburg 835s when they came out. The gun was mis-marked at Wal-Mart, and I got it for half price. I wasn't even gun shopping that day, but couldn't pass that up. It shot decent, but crapped out last year. It wouldn't feed shells from the tube to the action. I bought a Beretta 390 this summer. I like it a lot. It points really well, and I have shot my best rounds of skeet and 5 stand with it. My office buddy, the big duck hunter, was shooting an 11-87 that looked more like a boat paddle than a shotgun. He too bought a Beretta 390 this summer. So what is the cream of the crop in your oppinions. Are the 3 and a halfers needed. I personally fell like they are over kill, and kick like a mule. I am guilty of shooting them though on occasion. The only shotgun I have ever seen most people agree on as being great is the 870 express and wingmasters. Hopefully I will get a chance to go a time or two this year.

[Dan Jackson]

The rem 870 is my all purpose gun - it shoots well enough for the little bit of bifd hunting i get to do and I'm satisfied with it.

[Ryan Tucker]

I am a pump gun man myself. I have shot Browning BPS shotguns for years. I also like the 870's, but a couple of years ago Benelli rep talked me into trying one of his new Nova's and it has been a great waterfowl gun. I don't do hardly anything to it and is shoots about 1 case to 1 1/2 cases of shells each seasons. Never had a problem with it. It also points well and has a good follow through feel to it.

[JimHewitt]

I hunt a lot of giant Canadas, and do not believe that the 3.5" shells are necessary. They might be if you are regularly shooting at 65 yards, but I'm not that good a shot. I can't MAKE myself lead them enough at that distance.

I hunt over decoys and limit shots to 45 yards, and my 3" Browning side-by-side (fixed chokes, IC and Mod) is more than enough medicine with steel.

I've hunted turkeys, although not since the 3.5" guns were introduced, and I don't think I'd even consider the 3.5" for that very specialized pursuit.

IMHO, not only are the big shells hard on shoulders, but I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the 3.5" guns aren't going to last that long before they start shooting loose.

Your mileage may vary, and I wouldn't turn down a chance to hunt with someone shooting a 3.5" gun (unless they started skybusting thinking their guns were cannons), but I "just say no."

BTW...I have been hunting ducks since before the steel days, and the very best time in that period was in the time just after steel was mandated. The skybusters stayed home or switched to pheasants and upland game because they didn't believe that they could kill a duck at 20 yards. The bad shots who were killing (and mostly wounding) ducks with the edge of their cheap lead loads weren't hitting anything because their guns were overchoked and the pattern was too tight. Soon, they stayed home, too.

I never, ever want to be hunting in an area where people skybusting geese with buckshot are working. I have, and the buckshot comes down almost as fast as it goes up. I'm glad that no one has built steel buckshot yet (although the T and F shot are close).

[JimHewitt]

BTW, Shadow. You live in Louisiana and DON'T hunt ducks? Isn't that cause for being committed to an insane asylum or being thrown out of your church and all the fraternal organizations you belong to?

[Dan Jackson]

Gadwall, I just called the locals on shadow, they're on their way now to haul him off! ;) Live in LA and don't hunt ducks!!? I think he's really communist spy!!

[ July 27, 2001: Message edited by: Dan Jackson ]

[Shadow]

If you saw my deer lease you would probably shoot me. It is 1,200 acres of bottomland swamp that floods. There are many sloughs that criss cross the property. It is boardered by a major bayou (Red Chute), and the Flat River. We have a 40 acre cut over type field with bar pits that flood. The field was actually going to be a dump till the wetlands people jumped on the city for building it in a protected wetland. So we had this 40 acre bald field with the pits that were dug for the trash. Well, the high spots grew brush and willows, the flats grew grass, and the pits are now ponds. This place is a massive thicket of flooded willows, green ash, honey locust, and small water oak trees with some opening we cut in. It is in a poor location to get many big ducks though. We get wood ducks by the droves and a good many gadwalls. I have seen several bunches of mallards, and teal are around occasionally. I am sure there are some off ducks mixed in, but I can't tell what they are on the wing. Most of the spots are shallow enough to wade, if you can stand the cold, and YES it does get cold down here LOL. The lease that boarders us just got like a $500,000 grant from DU to cut out clear spots in the woods, levee it up, and put in pump stations to flood them. It sounds like World War III over there on opening day. The high areas around the lease are mainly soybean farms. Most of the members don't duck hunt out there, and don't really like a shotgun blasting ducks while they are deer hunting. HOWEVER, late in the season, if the deer are slow, we do go bang the ducks. It can be fun listing to the woodys whine as they drop out of the sky. Most of the spots I hunt I don't even use decoys. I just sit and wait...They Will Come! OK, so now you really think I am wierd. Well for about 10 years I was allergic to any type of bird meat. I couldn't eat duck, chicken or turkey. I seem to have out grown the allergy, and since then my duck hunting has increased. I really like deer hunting, but I don't turn down a good duck hunt. You should see the woodies at sunrise on a cold morning out there. They are pretty thick.

By the way, I work on a coastal grass project to help stop coastal erosion here in Louisiana. I have a pond here in Baton Rouge where I grow different selections of smooth cord grass. Yesterday I had about 25 REAL BIG canadians in my pond. I also had two unknown ducks. I am not really sure what they were. They were black with some white on the wings. They were really big. I think they may have been muskovy (spelling) ducks. I have not ever seen those ducks fly though. I also get some of those whistling tree ducks in them every now and then, along with some goose I can't identify. It is colored much like the whistling ducks, but it honks like a goose. It is really weird. I have not been able to find anything that looks like it on the id sites. Hoefully the new Beretta will bring home a web foot or two this year.

[JimHewitt]

All I can do is

sigh....

[Ryan Tucker]

Shadow, I am green with envy. smile.gif

[Shadow]

It sounds better than it actually is, but it is a great lease. It is actually about 15 minutes from downtown Shreveport LOL. Gadwall, I guess I would have gotten into duck hunting more, but we are only allowed like 3 woodies. That only takes about 5 minutes, then the hunt is over. Like I said, big ducks are few and far between. They are hardly reliable enough to bank a hunt on. Gadwalls are the most numerous big ducks we get. If you want serious duck action you need to go to South Texas. Every little patch of water is loaded. We made a trip this year and shot mainly black mallards, but also managed to take some green wing, blue wing, and a cinnamon teal. We got one green head, a widgeon, a pair or pintails, and the dreaded hooded merganser (hen :-( ). I will most likely get into it more as time goes on, especially since I can eat them now LOL. Maybe I will have to invite you to come show me how to do it.

[JimHewitt]

Or come on up here and see how we Yankees do it in October!