Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

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haNylanda
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Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by haNylanda »

Got my self 6 decoys, and I use a ground blind. With a lot of patient it is possible to get duck. Even without callers.

Any-others that have tried hunting duck with ground blind and a few decoys and no callers?

I got my self a few, but there is a lot of waiting and luck his kind of hunting.
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beamstas
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by beamstas »

multiplayer?
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CJ_Allex
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by CJ_Allex »

Duck hunting can be done on a budget but its definately the least likely candidate of species to do so for. Without duck calls and with only 6 decoys it may truly be a chore. Its not often that I see ducks fly in without calls even on a 26 to 30 decoy set. It does happen but more often than not it does not. Buy yourself at least the long range caller. My advice would be to grab yourself the callers asap and hunt maps with decoys already bought if you are on a budget. Welcome to join my rougaroo bayou anytime and im sure others host the map adequately as well. Good luck and hope all goes well!! :) Ducks can be addictive so be prepared. Oh yeah... (Take extra ammo) lol
haNylanda
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by haNylanda »

Have bought 5000 Em$ but duck and goose hunting equipment was not part in that buying round.
Thats why duck hunting is on a budget. Going to get the callers at one point, but for now I just going to have a lot of patient.

I kinda regret buying the .7 mm Magnum rifle, wish I did buy more callers first.
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Knokke
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by Knokke »

The problem with duck hunting is that the callers alone are almost useless (particularly the close range caller, that I would never have bought, have I known how useless it is). The ground blind is a must have also. And without decoys, only a few birds might land (most often far) every hours. I got the callers and the blind, and I can't expect more than 3 to 4 ducks landing in the vicinity every hours. Most often, I got 3-4 birds coming down every 5 or 7 flocks overflying me. It's very cleverly designed to squeeze every em$ possible rather than provide fun. I'm sure mallard hunting can provide fun, but it come at a cost that is way too prohibitive in comparison to other species. I regret every em$ I've spent in duck hunting; they'd have been better spent buying a tent.

The geese seems a better deal, as it's possible to hunt them with only the long range caller without tearing one's hair in frustration. An they come much more often, which means less time spend idling, waiting for a flock with a suicidal mood to land.
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Dillion1111
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by Dillion1111 »

Knokke wrote:The problem with duck hunting is that the callers alone are almost useless (particularly the close range caller, that I would never have bought, have I known how useless it is). The ground blind is a must have also. And without decoys, only a few birds might land (most often far) every hours. I got the callers and the blind, and I can't expect more than 3 to 4 ducks landing in the vicinity every hours. Most often, I got 3-4 birds coming down every 5 or 7 flocks overflying me. It's very cleverly designed to squeeze every em$ possible rather than provide fun. I'm sure mallard hunting can provide fun, but it come at a cost that is way too prohibitive in comparison to other species. I regret every em$ I've spent in duck hunting; they'd have been better spent buying a tent.

The geese seems a better deal, as it's possible to hunt them with only the long range caller without tearing one's hair in frustration. An they come much more often, which means less time spend idling, waiting for a flock with a suicidal mood to land.

I am going to disagree with most of what you stated here, aside from the fact that you have a grand total of 4 duck kills and 3 goose kills. I would advise anyone that reads up on bird hunting to take into consideration how many animals the person has actually killed before listening to any advice they have given.

It is apparent you don't like bird hunting but there are plenty others like myself that do and we have the kills to back it up.


First of all if you can only afford one caller then yes the long range is the best; however, it is a complete fallacy to suggest the short range caller does not work in both ducks and geese. When you do not use the short range caller the birds tend to land farther out. I have two spreads (48) decoys set-up for both ducks and geese.

Without the short call the birds generally land outside your spread and beyond them, ducks for example on average land 50 to 85m away and geese land about 40m or more away then walk in towards your decoys.

Using the short range caller the birds fly literally right over your head, circle over your head then land nearby. I have had ducks land right beside the blind. The short range caller absolutely works as intended.


Instead of ripping on the game developers for attempting to "squeeze ems" from us, maybe you should look at it in a different light. Unless your stats are wrong in your forum signature I would say 3 or 4 birds is not a significant quantity to do any kind of actual analysis.

Often times birds will break without even using my callers at all.

While some people say the ems cost is too much, I say $20.00 is nothing compared to the amount of hours of entertainment you will gain from such an item. I would also suggest ANYONE go to multi-player and see if you like it before you purchase the items.

I have killed several hundred birds and the ratio compared to the money I have spent is the cheapest entertainment dollar I have found.


It's not for everyone, but potential players, I hope you do a bit of research and throw out the garbage reviews of people that are complaining over spending pennies a day for hours of entertainment.
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Knokke
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by Knokke »

I have two spreads (48) decoys set-up for both ducks and geese.
It looks like you didn't take the time to read the title of the post , nor my own post for that matter.
the title says it all: "hunting mallard on a budget". Two spreads totaling 48 decoys plus the two callers and the blind are certainly not what the original poster meant by "on a budget".
keep your two full spreads in your inventory, and start with only the long range caller. See how many birds you're able to get. Then add the short range caller, and see if you can get more birds. Then allow yourself to take your blind with you, and show us how many hundreds of birds you're going to shoot.
If anything, your post serves only to confirm what I'm saying: mallards can be fun, but you need the full equipment before it starts making fun.
now, back to the subject:
I would be interested to know how the others who try to hunt ducks with the minimum equipment are faring, as the original poster was asking, rather than how those with the maximum equipment fares.
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fjernen
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by fjernen »

My opinion is buy the calls and use other peoples blinds and decoys. I am far happier to share my gear if the other hunters have calls. The people that aggravate me are those without calls unless they are just trying out duck hunting to see if its something they want to do. Some one was gracious enough to allow me to duck hunt with no calls. I had a blast and bought my own gear.
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aridus
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by aridus »

Well I haven't been trying very hard but I got the flag lure for geese and managed to get some to break. I bagged two. It took a long time but I didn't expect much.

Then I decided to get the long range caller for mallards. I've got some to break but I haven't dropped any yet, even though I've hit a few. Seems about the same as geese but I need to be more patient.

I bought these with survey em$ so I don't really care. One less thing to worry about later. They do work alone though, just not very efficiently.
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MoonpieSpotlight
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Re: Mallard Duck hunting on a budget

Post by MoonpieSpotlight »

Knokke wrote:
I have two spreads (48) decoys set-up for both ducks and geese.
It looks like you didn't take the time to read the title of the post , nor my own post for that matter.
the title says it all: "hunting mallard on a budget". Two spreads totaling 48 decoys plus the two callers and the blind are certainly not what the original poster meant by "on a budget".
keep your two full spreads in your inventory, and start with only the long range caller. See how many birds you're able to get. Then add the short range caller, and see if you can get more birds. Then allow yourself to take your blind with you, and show us how many hundreds of birds you're going to shoot.
If anything, your post serves only to confirm what I'm saying: mallards can be fun, but you need the full equipment before it starts making fun.
now, back to the subject:
I would be interested to know how the others who try to hunt ducks with the minimum equipment are faring, as the original poster was asking, rather than how those with the maximum equipment fares.
The same is true for duck hunting IRL. Set up on a pond where you know ducks frequent, and blow the caller. You'll be lucky if one even breaks. Now set up with a blind and the caller, you might be some breaks but probably flyovers too high to shoot. Now put some dekes out, just a few, you might get a bird or two to land in your area. Now put out 50 dekes and a couple mojos and blow the caller, you'll be covered up with birds if they are in your area.

The best way to duck hunt on a budget is in MP mode. You only need the shotgun.
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