3 Things That Will Help You Hit More Ducks This Season

I wasn’t surprised. I wouldn’t even rank woodcock as anywhere near the most difficult upland bird to hit, let alone put them in the same class as most ducks.

There are few things more challenging than when the right conditions meet the right ducks, and your job is to figure out the correct lead and then swing through the shot. Missing ducks is a part of hunting ducks, and it can be frustrating. There are also a few things you can do to cut down on your whiffs and scratch a few more birds from the sky. This almost always starts with the right gun.

Several years ago, my duck hunting partner and I were tucked into some brush along a small stream in central Minnesota. There was a mix of teal, wood ducks, and mallards in play, but we weren’t alone since we were on public land. At one point, we watched a group of duck hunters climb a hill and then shoot at some birds that were circling, by my estimation, almost to cloud height.

It was the most egregious example of sky-busting I’ve ever seen, but not the only one. Swatting ducks that commit to your spread and come in like they are supposed to, is generally pretty easy. Hitting ducks that are three times higher than the effective range of your gun, or shooting at birds that strafe across the sky on a strong tailwind, are a different story.

Impatience saves a lot of ducks. If you have to talk yourself into a shot, it’s best to probably not take it. If you want to shoot out of frustration, don’t. At best, you’ll whiff. At worst, you’ll clip a bird that will do its best to get away and stay away, even if it’s mortally wounded.

There is a misnomer about shooting that involves us laser-focusing on the right gun and the right fundamentals of executing a shot. These are great, but they only take you so far if you choose to take low-odds shots. Learn to be patient and let the birds work. You’ll shoot less but hit far more.

To the uninitiated, it probably sounds like total BS when someone says there are just certain guns that work for certain people. I’ve owned a few shotguns in my life that not only fit really well, but they just worked for me. There’s an intangible to matching a scattergun to a human, where they either work together, or don’t.

Most of us aren’t in a position to buy as many shotguns as we need to in order to suss out the perfect match. The next best thing you can do is shoot a lot of guns. Switch it up with your buddy sometime. Shoot some trap at the local range. Figure out what you have to do to get your hands on as many different shotguns as you can.

Keep an open mind, too. I have a pair of over/under shotguns in 20-gauge and 12-gauge that are damn near the same guns except for size. I almost can’t miss with the 20-gauge, but I hate carrying the 12-gauge. On paper, they should both work for me, but they don’t and I can’t really explain why. The same thing happened to me when I upgraded duck guns last fall.

Through very lucky circumstances I ended up with two semi-autos that didn’t come off the same line, but seem like they could have. With one, it’s like I’m shooting blanks. The other one is a total killer in my hands. It has also proven itself in my twin daughters’ hands, too. Some guns just shoot well, especially when they are paired with the right choke, and they are worth seeking out.

I think it’s very likely that this adds an element of confidence to the wingshooting thing that probably knocks more mallards out of the sky than we give it credit for, as well.

This might seem dumb, but when I switched from a traditional metal bead to a fiber optic bead on my duck gun, I hit more birds. It wasn’t solely because I could aim better, although I can. What really happened, is that my brain more easily registered where my barrel was when I missed.

It helped me dial in my leads much better. The thing about wingshooting is that it’s easy to miss and just write it off to an act brought down by the duck gods. Understanding why you miss is important, and anything you can do to address that is huge.

That might be just not giving the birds enough lead. Or, it might be that you pick your cheek up off the stock at the last fraction of a second. It might be a lot of things, but the more you analyze what probably happened (and you’re honest about it), the better off you’ll be when the next flock of greenheads swings in.