Do you want to hunt ducks but have no idea how to setup the decoys? We have all been there. It is frustrating to try and figure out the basics on effective decoy spread setups.

Ever wonder how to get started doing something, but didn't exactly know where to start? It's a question I get fairly often, after completing one of my Hunter Education classes. It is for that reason, I put down my thoughts and related much of my personal experience in just one facet of many, on small game hunting. Waterfowl hunting is a sport I've done for over fifty years. I spared you most of the mistakes I've made over those years and compiled a method of getting started with waterfowl hunting that should be the simplest and least expensive on your wallet, getting started. You will learn everything from how to select the correct firearms, choke usage, decoys and lots of other considerations for buying the right gear, best suited for where and what time of year you will be hunting. You'll learn some very basic method for decoy set-up and blind construction. Whether or not to get a good retrieving dog. And afterwards, you'll learn how to clean and prepare your quarry for the table. Make no mistake, this is just how to get started off on the right path. It'll be up to you, once you've gained experience, to delve further into this fun sport.

Waterfowling is one of the more challenging forms of hunting. Requiring an intimate knowledge of the quarry in specialized gear—from shotguns and ammo to decoys, calls, blinds, and boats—and taking place in a variety of terrains—from the fields of Manitoba to the flooded timber of Arkansas, it’s the type of sport that gets in your blood and stays there. In The Ultimate Guide to Waterfowl Hunting, all aspects of this sport are covered by three authors who have intimate knowledge of how to hunt ducks and geese successfully. Chapters within this book cover dozens of topics, with special attention devoted to: Identifying the many and various species of waterfowl Methods for decoying and calling in a variety of situations Advice on how to choose the best gear for the situation at hand Theories and practices of retriever training and handling Tips on hunting in different types of weather, from rain and snow to bluebird skies How to choose the correct guns and loading Plus tips on blind placement in water or on land With more than a hundred photographs expertly illuminating the realities of waterfowl hunting, The Ultimate Guide to Waterfowl Hunting is sure to help hunters of all skill levels bag their biggest catches yet.

No waterfowl hunter can afford to be without this complete, up-to-date guidebook.

From its earliest days of human habitation, the Texas coast was home to seemingly endless clouds of ducks, geese, swans, and shorebirds. By the 1880s Texas huntsmen, or market hunters, as they came to be called, began providing meat and plumage for the restaurant tables and millinery salons of a rapidly growing nation. A network of suppliers, packers, distribution centers, and shipping hubs efficiently handled their immense harvest. At the peak of Texas market hunting in the late 1890s, Rockport merchants shipped an average of 600 ducks a day in a five-month shooting season, and in the last year of legal market hunting, an estimated 60,000 ducks and geese were shipped from Corpus Christi alone. Market men employed efficient methods to harvest nature’s bounty. They commonly hunted at night, often using bait to concentrate large numbers of waterfowl. The effectiveness of the hunt was improved when side-by-side double barrel shotguns and large-gauge swivel guns gave way to repeating firearms, with some capable of discharging as many as eleven shells in a single volley. Their methods were so efficient that, by the late 1800s, Texas sportsmen and others blamed the alarming decline of coastal waterfowl populations on the market hunter’s occupation. In 1903, after a long fight and many failures, the first migratory bird game law passed the Texas legislature. Though the fight would continue, it was the beginning of the end of the year-round slaughter. Most market hunters quit, and those who didn’t became outlaws. In this book, R. K. Sawyer chronicles the days of market hunting along the Texas coast and the showdown between the early game wardens and those who persisted in commercial waterfowl hunting. Containing an abundance of rare historical photographs and oral history, Texas Market Hunting: Stories of Waterfowl, Game Laws, and Outlaws provides a comprehensive and colorful account of this bygone period.

Discusses the appeal of the sport and details hunting and shooting techniques, boat design, blend construction and wild fowl cookery

The days are gone when seemingly limitless numbers of canvasbacks, mallards, and Canada geese filled the skies above the Texas coast. Gone too are the days when, in a single morning, hunters often harvested ducks, shorebirds, and other waterfowl by the hundreds. The hundred-year period from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century brought momentous changes in attitudes and game laws: changes initially prompted by sportsmen who witnessed the disappearance of both the birds and their spectacular habitat. These changes forever affected the state’s storied hunting culture. Yet, as R. K. Sawyer discovered, the rich lore and reminiscences of the era’s hunters and guides who plied the marshy haunts from Beaumont to Brownsville, though fading, remain a colorful and essential part of the Texas outdoor heritage. Gleaned from interviews with sportsmen and guides of decades past as well as meticulous research in news archives, Sawyer’s vivid documentation of Texas’ deep-rooted waterfowl hunting tradition is accompanied by a superb collection of historical and modern photographs. By preserving this account of a way of life and a coastal environment that have both mostly vanished, A Hundred Years of Texas Waterfowl Hunting also pays tribute to the efforts of all those who fought to ensure that Texas’ waterfowl legacy would endure. This book will aid their efforts in championing the preservation of waterfowl and wetland resources for the benefit of future generations.