I can remember when there where few mud motors and everybody had a different rig. From jonboat to sailboat they made it work. After the hunt, I would watch the variety of waterfowl cruisers make their way to the ramp where we would discuss the days hunt...................

Didn't start to hunt ducks until later in life. As a kid I do remember passing by neighbor's houses and seeing the boats in front of the house after a hunt.

Kind of rembering how many folks hunted ducks back then. It was before the points system.

I started as an adult too.

I don't know that there is a lack of diversity though. There were a couple of recent threads on this site of bass buster conversions and there was a guy with a pontoon conversion and don't forget the guy who used a jet ski a little while back.

That doesn't even begin to cover the dozen or so guys I know with kayaks and other small boats. Hopedale is working on his home-built boat and I am looking for a deal on a canoe.

I started hunting ducks about 5 years ago, needless to say I was and adult (turned 52 yesterday) too before I started this game but before then all I had ever done was pool jumped them. My uncles on my dad's side of the family hunted them pretty seriously in what is now the Russell Sage WMA in Louisiana. They used to come home with limits almost everytime they hit the water and sometimes they would indulge themselves in much greater numbers than the limits allowed...My dad used to go every once in a while and there was just something about the way his hunting gear smelled when he came home from duck hunting that excited me; the smell of burnt gun powder and ducks, its hard to explain. By the time I was old enough to go it had gotten to expensive for my dads liking so I never got to try it as a child. I can remember hearing them talk about how much fun it was and I guess that was part of the reason I got into the game. The other two pieces were my son wanting to get involved and us living almost on a WMA.......

Back when I did hunt them, ducks were on the POINT SYSTEM
I don't remember a whole lot about it except a mallard drake was 100 points, kill one of them and you were pretty much done for the day...

Jet-Ski lol. I'd love to see the dude all camo'd out shotty on a sling, Santa Claus sack o' dekes over his shoulder on a stand up jet -ski...Too funny!

We walked into our spots when i was in HS. had to walk a few miles fully loaded with gear sometimes...in hip deep water

If I remember correctly didn't the guy on the jetski say he almost drown in his thread? That right there will tell you the lengths people will go to hunting.

leme guess...he had his waders on?

have seen it here in east tx several times. I did laugh when I saw his dog riding with him

Remember back when Richland Chambers was just filling up hunting a flooded pecan grove out of old lake corsicana.

Having hundreds of Mallards drop through the canopy!

Also, remember Cooper filling up...

Remember hunting Lavon when it was still "in the country"

I also remember hunting the coast in the lower laguna and we were the only ones duck hunting...

Times have changed.

J.J.

Rick .... I suspect that your memory is only partially accurate in that HEN Mallards were 90 or 100 points, Drakes were 25 or so, at least where I hunted.

Ok I'll believe you... I never was much of a duck hunter and it was always confusing to me. I could hardly tell what kind of ducks they were when they were dead and in my hand. Much less live and in the sky...

Back in the 80's I used my dads fish and ski barge to hunt on granburry. It was just me and one other guy that hunted it. We had fixed blinds built on stilts. Mallards would leeave the peanuts around 9 and start heading into the lake. Don't mind naming that lake since you have to draw for a blind now. We hunted another local lake that had peanuts around it also and the ducks did the same thing. I rember thinking if I can just save enough money for some G&H decoys i would be set. Like JJ said I worked for a guide in port A during Christmas break every year and we had zero problems with people setting up by us because are clients were the only people out there, we use to put out about 100 decoys the night before and never worried about them.

My group of friends had the run of the country for a while for free. Most of that land is high dollar duck leases now

I spent the 1980's in a Wigeon Sneakboat. Fond memories of those days.

Hunted the opener on Fork in 1980. Point system with many ducks. Lead shot was bad medicine on quackers back then.

Hunted the opener on Cooper in 1990. 3 duck limit, not many hunters but plenty of ducks. Boy have things changed.

Another obligatory 1-uper post on what we used to do back when.

Chilled I'd love to have one more crack at Cooper with green timber in it....I wasn't there but that had to be awesome.........

Lake, that area has changed soooo much in 22 yrs. Many great memories though.