doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Teal have the advantage.

Went duck hunting this morning. I must say shooting behind teal, when they have a 35-45+ mph tail wind is an experience I will never grow tired of. Best shot was when I killed the fourth or fifth bird in line because I just could not get far enough out in front of the leaders. Son managed to kill the second bird in one flyby group but he was honest enough to be grinning when it fell. Only better experience is trying to shoot Doves with a similar tail wind either with an approaching thunderstorm or in January when they get a nice 30 mph tail wind. It�s fun when you miss sometimes.

I think the hardest shot on a flock of teal are when they�re coming in hot....straight in front of you, right at you....gear down, the speed combined with all their jooking and jiving is a real challenge. My eyes get all googly trying to focus on my target.
I sure do like them though. I rarely shoot Teal anymore, my particular area is pretty mallard heavy...a little farther south of me is a teal wonderland though.

Can't speak for doves, as they are not legal quarry here in MI-but do see flocks of them when field hunting ducks and geesr, all Fall long. And in off-season when shooting barn pigeons.

Since steel shot laws, I only hunt and mallards and Canada geese- where and how I hunt (sans the partners I had some years ago, including 4 legged ones) I do NOT shoot any of the 3 teal species, mostly bluewings here in our flyway, nor woodies either-Not that they aren't table worthy, they are very tasty if prepared correctly, but as I prefer to use one basic steel load in my "pet" M12 12 bore--I stay with No. 2 steel shot size, which works well on the bigger birds I shoot.

Many years ago, using my old A-5 Belgium 12 bore, with Briley tubes, I shot divers from layout boats, using Federal Premium copper plated No. 4's-- Big water, spreads of 200 or more decoys, tons of scaup- limit of ten per day- plus 2 Canadas, and 3 drake mallards as a bonus. When I went from the Briley Mod. choke tube in that "humpy-back and used the Imp. Cyl. choke tube instead (with the same No. 4 shot size loads--) boy howdy, my percentages went way up-- fast and low incomers, and crossing shots right over the decoys- darn tricky shooting indeed--

Now-a-days, hunting solo, I mainly get incomers and circling birds, dropping in altitude with each pass-still tricky shooting, wind and weather- time of day, all factors-- RWTF

A favorite image for me is when a good sized flock of green wings decoy. They come in slicing and slashing, but when they pull up and drop their feet, the breast feathers on the drakes pop like bright light flashes.

Teal are loads of fun. Shooting late season doves prepares you for those long leads necessary. Difference is that you rarely get the bonus of killing a dove back aways from the leader as they are almost never in a line. Show me a man who takes a single, high flying mature dove with 30 mph tailwind, with one shot and I'll show you a man who can take teal well, too. I agree with Dustin about the straight incoming teal. When I was shooting them up at Reelfoot Lake a couple years ago we had lots of them like that. Fine sport, without any doubt.

Glad you had a good time, Jon. We finished up the cotton today ............ dove season comes back in tomorrow, and I'm ready Freddy.

SRH

I have proven that I can miss any shot on a teal. In coming, out going, crossing, it doesn't matter. I can miss them all. But I get my fair share eventually. And they are spectacularly tasty.

I use #5 Bi handloads and they get the job done. Even took a very close Giant with them and got excellent penetration.

Coolest teal thing I ever witnessed was in a flooded corn field in the L 'Anguille River bottoms. We were shooting decoyed mallards while standing almost waist deep on the edge of the corn field, dekes out in front of us. There was a hard cold front bearing down on us and the mallards were working the flooded corn constantly that afternoon. High up you could see thousands of ducks headed south.

I noticed that the mallards had suddenly vacated the scene, and at the same moment heard a whistling sound ............ the sound of wings cutting the air. Realizing it was coming from above us I looked up and saw what must have been 200 teal diving for the flooded corn. A way bigger group than any wad of teal I had ever seen, by far. They had been migrating south and had seen the corn and the other ducks, and wanted some for themselves. They came down until they got, maybe, 400 feet high, then broke up into smaller groups of 15 to 20 and strafed that corn like squadrons of little fighter jets. Those mallards didn't want any of that and backed off and let them have it. We killed several, they left, and the mallards immediately came back.

The next morning I was telling a member of the family there about what we saw. He said "You actually saw that?" He said he had hunted ducks all his life, and he was in his 70s, and had only seen that one time. It was so cool.

SRH

Teal in heavy fog is most sporty. You can't lead them too much.


Cheers,

Raimey
rse

A few years ago I was scouting for a mallard shoot in Saskatchewan and came across a field full of Greenwings, thousands of them. I've found scads of mallard and goose fields with birds like that but never have seen the teal like that afternoon...Geo

OK, some might not believe this, but it was a highlight of my early [and late] hunting days.

After turning 16 I was able to buy a 1953 Studebaker Commander hardtop for $300. We now could hunt a bit without an older person taking us. My cousin and I left town after school to hunt "Perryman's Ponds" , a string of three ponds along a half mile of drainage. The first two ponds were fairly large, but there were no ducks when we poked our heads over the dams. On the way to the last, a much smaller pond, about 50 ft. x 50 ft. my cousin and I were sneaking up the ditch. About 40 yards before the dam, there was this whoosh and a group of teal came from behind us not far above our heads and lit over the dam. Not hardly breathing we approached the dam and as I stuck my head up I saw the teal in a tight group on the pond. I shot and they got up and shot twice more with my dad's Remington Model 10. Two dropped and I cannot say for sure that they were the ones I was aiming at. My cousin was a bit behind and never got a shot. I got up on top of the dam and there were ducks everywhere. I had gotten 7 on the water and two out of the air. I can still remember the feeling.

Then, we thought about the game warden and duck limits and talked about how we could get the ducks to my cousin's farm , about three miles away , without getting caught or maybe even fined or going to jail. We decided to put as many ducks as we could behind the hub caps of the Studebaker . No one would look there. We got maybe a hundred yards down the gravel road and the hubcaps began to fly off, being sort of out of balance, I guess. My cousin and I stopped, jumped out and retrieved the hubcaps and ducks and put them in the trunk. We made it to his farm safely, and I guess the Statue of Limitations has long protected us after the 1958 lucky hunting trip.

I had a wave of teal come across the marsh, just in front of bad weather storm front, maybe 30 years ago. Storm was sleet, freezing rain and heavy snow mix with stiff winds. Not talking hundreds but must have been several thousands coming off Black Water Refuge on the Eastern Shore. It was so impressive I never raised a gun. They came over my blind at about ten yards high in a wave that had to be a mile wide and about a quarter mile deep. I have never seen so many teal in one place in my life. I figured they were looking to get up into the small creeks with woods around them for cover against the front coming.

About three minutes late a wave of geese did the same thing. By then I had recovered and we shot several geese as the passed by. Then the front hit and we hunkered down in the blind for about half an hour. Ice had formed on the boat and it was a real struggle to get out of there. Those teal knew.