Mentor needed for new waterfowl/goose hunter

[Eyesofthewoods]

I’ve been hunting for years and while I’ve gone a handful of times with my buddies in PA, I have little experience with geese/duck hunting.  Obviously I need all the gear like calls, waiters, decoys etc...  but more then that I don’t know where to even start.  
 

It’s something I’d like to get into.  I’m located in Morris county NJ and if there is anyone who wouldn’t mind a tag along I’d be happy to go for the coming season in 2021.  thanks!

[Jcol6268]

If you think deer hunting is bad, waterfowl is ten times worse lol. Guys keep their mouth shut and aren’t too quick to welcome others in. It’s a limited resource in the Atlantic flyway so guys want to keep things to themselves. I’m new to it myself. 1. Get ready to pony up some money for equipment. 2. Scout, scout, scout...there’s more scouting involved then you can imagine. The birds are constantly moving, so what is good today can be gone tomorrow, but fresh intel from scouting is a must. Learning to call is tricky. Spend a lot of time doing it, it just takes time but comes with practice.
 

I think a lot of people aren’t so welcoming because it takes a lot of work to put together a successful hunt. Some guys put in a lot of work and a lot of money and they hate when someone just tags along and hasn’t contributed anything. A big help is YouTube. It’s where I’ve learned a lot of what I do know to this point. I have a group I hunt with now and they appreciate the amount of work that I do put in and contribute and they help by teaching me the rest. 

[rem870hunter1]

Good luck

[chenrossi]

Might find somebody in area willing to help but best advice I can give is don’t worry about calling #1. Scout your butt off, hide well, then hide better and shut up. If birds don’t finish, refer to your hide. And if calling isn’t working, shut up more and hide better.

[Bobcat19]

On 1/11/2021 at 10:03 AM, Jcol6268 said:

If you think deer hunting is bad, waterfowl is ten times worse lol. Guys keep their mouth shut and aren’t too quick to welcome others in. It’s a limited resource in the Atlantic flyway so guys want to keep things to themselves. I’m new to it myself. 1. Get ready to pony up some money for equipment. 2. Scout, scout, scout...there’s more scouting involved then you can imagine. The birds are constantly moving, so what is good today can be gone tomorrow, but fresh intel from scouting is a must. Learning to call is tricky. Spend a lot of time doing it, it just takes time but comes with practice.
 

I think a lot of people aren’t so welcoming because it takes a lot of work to put together a successful hunt. Some guys put in a lot of work and a lot of money and they hate when someone just tags along and hasn’t contributed anything. A big help is YouTube. It’s where I’ve learned a lot of what I do know to this point. I have a group I hunt with now and they appreciate the amount of work that I do put in and contribute and they help by teaching me the rest. 

What he said  x 2

[Eyesofthewoods]

32 minutes ago, Bobcat19 said:

What he said  x 2

Yeah lol.  I’ll figure it out I guess just wasn’t sure how involved the waterfowl community was.  I guess not so much lol.  

[rem870hunter1]

On 1/18/2021 at 8:52 PM, chenrossi said:

Might find somebody in area willing to help but best advice I can give is don’t worry about calling #1. Scout your butt off, hide well, then hide better and shut up. If birds don’t finish, refer to your hide. And if calling isn’t working, shut up more and hide better.

Adding to what chenrossi said...If you have'nt done it already,pattern your gun. It might seem or sound like alot of work or trouble but it's worth it. Tricky now with ammo prices and shortages. I'm using BB for goose and #2 for ducks,i do have a good #3 load for early duck but work gets in the way. I have a few tips if you're interested that might save time,energy and money.

Edited January 24, 2021 by rem870hunter1

[mazzgolf]

The hardest thing with waterfowling is location, location, location. (I guess the next thing on the list is figuring out how to retrieve down birds - you need either a dog, a boat/kayak or a spot that is shallow enough that you can retrieve on foot - but that gets back to location again).

Everything else - it's not brain surgery (decoys, calls, how to set up and hide - just requires money to buy the stuff and knowledge you can mostly obtain on YouTube) - but finding places to hunt is the hardest part. Private spots you need permission or public spots that hold birds that you know about and you can get to. Either one is hard to obtain.

Without giving out my secret spots ;-) I'll give you a hint of something you could do to find a spot or two - it's something I just realized yesterday and found a couple spots to hunt because of it. Yesterday was extremely windy (Gale Warning, in fact) so not a lot of guys took out their boats. What did they do? They went to spots you can get to on foot. As I was driving down the shore yesterday, I saw more than one truck parked on the side of the road. I never saw so many trucks on the side of the road before while driving down to hunt - and I realized it was probably guys that normally would have been out on a boat but instead they walked in. I slowed down and looked out into the marsh, and some places I actually saw some guys hunting. I wasn't "scouting" per se, but once I realized what was going on, I paid more attention and I'm like, "Yeah, you know what, you could park around here, get out and walk 100 yards out into the marsh and be able to setup and hunt". Depending on the tide and depth of water, you may need a dog to retrieve, or you may not. That would require boots-on-the -ground scouting to know and find spots that don't require a dog if you don't have one. But, if you really are interested, and you have no place to hunt, just drive through some coastal areas and the marsh and look for spots that you can get to via the road - maybe even look for trucks on the side of the road and guys hunting as a give-away.

[jerseyducker]

Mazz is right-figuring out how to retrieve down birds is rule number 1. Dont shoot a bird you know you cant bag. 

As for the rest, if your gonna hunt coastal, you will need to learn the tides, how wind blows in tides and as on saturday blows them out, the marsh you can walk on and the ditches you can cross on the various tides, and when you need to leave or risk being stranded on wrong side due to incoming water and the sucking mud that is the marsh. A back pack to carry in decoys/waters/food etc. If your gonna put in a kayak or canoe, places and winds that you can handle and when its not safe go to a back up plan. 

In the end, only time scouting and doing it will work. Took me 5 hard years by-myself to learn how to even scratch the surface of coastal hunting, now that I have been doing it for 25 plus years i know my spots like my backyard and have passed the lessons on to my sons. 

Start slow and build, in the end you will enjoy the eqperience of duck hunting better knowing you have figured out what you like and how you like to hunt. Always remember rule 1. 

[DarthWaderTroj]

I've been duck hunting with my brother in Texas for a few years when I visit him. This past year I decided to try and get into it here in NJ and boy was I disappointed because the waterfowl community so far has been as welcoming as a cranky old person with their porch light off on Halloween. I guess there are too many people who steal other people's spots so no one wants to let you in. I got a kayak and some decoys to try and go by myself, but it makes me real nervous to be paddling in the dark alone.