You may not have heard of this call company before, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been in existence for quite some time.  The “Bays Call” was developed by Lewis Bays - a waterfowl biologist in Mississippi.  Crafted in the 1960’s, he recognized there was no call specifically to lure in wood ducks.  After some handcrafting, he made a call and the results were impressive.  Mixing a wood duck call into the standard mallard mix seemed to draw a lot of call-shy birds into decoy spreads.  From then on, the Bays Call grew in popularity, but never to the same degree as other big-name call manufacturers.  Lewis’ son and grandson now handcraft each Bays Call according to the original design. 

If you would like to know more about the Bays Call and its history, click here.

On Saturday, Andrew and I headed out to Jordan Lake to our favorite early season waterfowl hole.  Trying to outsmart and put some distance between us and the other hunters, we tried a crazy idea.  Putting a 12 foot jon boat over a 20 foot rip rap wall and dragging it through 100 yards of woods/watery jungle to get to the swamp.  Well, as you might guess, a lot easier said than done.  We ended up having to cut our heroic attempt short and set up right where we would have hunted if we had waded in…but hey, at least we had some nice seats to sit in. 

After we put the decoys out and brushed the boat in with cattails, we waited for dawn to break.  Sure enough, we were quickly greeted by whistling wood ducks as they headed for the safety of the nearby swamp.  If it weren’t for the fog, we may have shot a little better, but no sooner would you get a glimpse of the birds then they would re-enter the dense fog and be lost from sight.  We volleyed at a couple passing ducks, but nothing connected until about 8:00 a.m.

A drake wood duck came in off the main lake and got a little too close.  A couple shots later and he was down.

I thought this was a pretty cool photo of the drake woodie laying on the wooden oar.

Then our shooting skills (not that they were great to begin with) started to unravel.  2 or 3 ducks come within 20 yards of our decoy spread and camoflauged boat, but our aim was horrible and we let several gimmes get away. 

Around 9:30 a.m., we decided to set out on a voyage towards bigger water and do some exploring.  We got close to a black duck, but no shots were fired.  Then on 2 different occasions we got our last chances at a couple more wood ducks, but we couldn’t improve our warped aim. 

I will tell you there was something more dismal than our shooting on Saturday morning.  It was the thought of wrestling the boat back up the rip rap to the roadway above.  It was a grueling process, but we don’t have any herniated disks and the jon boat didn’t get left in the swamp (although we were tempted). 

In all seriousness though, it was a great time just enjoying some beautiful weather, a fair showing by the ducks, and enjoying getting to relax in the outdoors.  However, I can assure you, we’ll wade in next time.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has made the 2008 regular waterfowl seasons available on their website.

The Regulations call for an early season of October 1-October 4, a middle season of November 8-29, and a late season of December 13-January 24.  The most notable changes in bag limits for inland North Carolina duck hunters is the increase from 2 to 3 wood ducks in the allowable daily harvest of 6 overall ducks.

Check out the regulations, so you know the rules and make sure you play within the sunrise/sunset rules, nobody likes you shooting before and after the times that the law allows, it makes my skin crawl, and I hope you flat out get stomped by the game warden if you try to get away with it.

Shoot straight this year in the swamps and best of luck to everyone!

Now is the time to start planning a successful early season Canada goose hunt.  You might want to start re-routing your path to work in the morning so that you can swing by some fields and start surveying where the local favorite landing pads are.  Scouting is the key to a great September goose shoot.

This batch of 24 geese was taken on the 3rd day of the 2006 North Carolina early goose season.  All resident geese that we had patterned for several weeks in advance.  Two days before this shoot, we shot 20 or so more honkers as they pitched into the first decoys they had seen in over 9 months.  After 2 heavy doses of hi-speed steel 12 gauge shells, the geese definitely wised up, but the damage was done.

For your best goose hunt of the 2008 season, start planning now.  September patterned geese don’t often disappoint.

Also, you might want to consider this pose for early season goose shoots.  Haybales are often found in the fields that time of year and make a great photo prop!