Jump shooting?? Never done it. I usually get up at 3am. Put waders on. Set out decoys. Get the whining dog or dogs out Get in the blind. Scold them to be quiet! Freeze. Go home.

It’s great fun Andy. More like spot and stalk hunting or like walk ‘em up pheasant or grouse hunting.





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Jump shooting is sneaking up on ducks along drainage ditches. Its basically walking one to two miles in chest waders, because if you shoot a duck, you get to retrieve it. While very productive, a beaver dam makes things very interesting on the retrieve!

Andy, your description of duck hunting is precisely why I have never done it!

Those are dandy late season curly tail mallards. Good job.

It's not hunting unless you suffer, right? I don't know that we have many places to do it, but perhaps a small trout stream would work near me. Season is open until next week, and I have my stamp. All I'm missing is a Parker to do it with!

A Parker is advised but not necessary to enjoy the thrills of jump-shooting puddle ducks. I did it all the time when I was a kid with a 20 gauge Stevens single shot, then a Parker Trojan 12 ga. then a Stevens 20 gauge pump. It didn't matter to me what I used, it was just a whole lot of fun!





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I have no shortage of guns to use, but am merely making an excuse to get a 12 bore ; ) I don't know how folks decide which gun to use. Sometimes I look at the safe and have paralysis by analysis over what gun to use. Since getting my 28DHE Repro I just don't carry anything else for grouse. My O/U's are getting lonely, not to mention my Ithaca 37 and LC Smith and A5s.

There are other fun ways to jump shoot ducks, such as from a boat. Nash Buckingham and friends would have a paddler, or many times a poler as the water was very shallow and weedy. Man with the gun sat up front in the boat.

I do it alone in my camo fiberglass kayak, or with a friend in a Gheenoe. We are on streams with a good current, and the paddler in the rear of the boat just keeps the boat straight as it drifts with the current.

This is my hunting kayak:

https://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/62057_800x600.jpg

https://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/62058_800x600.jpg

During quail season we will jump shoot ducks on ranch ponds. If I don’t have my lab or the one English pointer with me that water retrieves we carry a stiff bass rod.
17 lb test and a top water plug. Saves wading in the pond or throwing rocks trying to get them to float to the down wind side of the pond.