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Squirrelhunter91

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Well last year I went goose hunting for the first time in my life with a buddy of mine from high school who has always tried to get me to go out with him. I shot my first goose on that hunt and that started what has quickly become another addiction.

We all went out on our Sept 1st early goose opener and we hammered 6 geese. Not a whole lot for most but for the swamp where we hunt, adjacent to the Hudson River, it was our best day out.

October 8th was early duck season and we were out that day also. We killed one drake mallard all morning but after watching him call to the single and get it to decoy, I fell in love with this whole waterfowl hunting thing.

My question to you folks is, what do I need to get to get started with waterfowl? It's mostly going to be Canadian geese and whatever ducks migrate through the swamp. I've been looking at calls and stuff but I just don't have a clue where to start.

I already have the semi automatic 12ga covered along with plug and steel shot. That's as far as I've gotten though because I've primarily relied on his equipment but for next year, I want to be prepared.

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I started 3 years ago and every year I spend more and more.Are you hunting feilds or water.If water-get a good pair of waders.If feild-get a good layout blind.I like ghg duck decoys and I also like the hard core goose decoys.Get a call with a dvd and pratice.rnt has these for goose and duck.You can get a free catalog from macks.They have lots of stuff.More places that sell stuf are cabelas,rogers,gander mt. Hunting Gear, Duck Hunting, Duck Hunting Calls and Duck Decoys - Mackspw.com

Cabela's: Cabela's Official Website - Quality Hunting, Fishing, Camping and Outdoor Gear at competitive prices.

http://www.rogerssportinggoods.com/

Gander Mountain® > Hunting, Fishing, Camping, and Outdoor Gear & Equipment : We Live Outdoors®

compair prices and shipping charges!

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I get a lot of my stuff from macks, unless cabelas has a sale or something going on. all my deeks are greenhead gear, i love their decoys. I have a few Duck Commander duck calls, pretty cheap and they sound pretty good. But for goose I like the RNT line, they have some really good calls IMO. It may be expensive starting out but i usually buy another dozen decoys every year and before long you build up a pretty good spread.. and i think another really important thing is to go with someone that knows what their doing for the first couple years, i didnt have anyone to go with and had to learn on my own. Good luck! its very addictive!!

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A good pure bred lab usually fits well into the whole waterfowling gear bag....especially if you plan on hunting alot of water. Makes one heck of a buddy for the whole family too!

I'll add my two cents to whats been mentioned above:

Along with lots of ammo, you will need a good ammo bag to lug it all around in. Ammo bags are good places to also keep extra emergeny gear such as extra calls, gloves etc. The layout blind is very key - they work great, are durable, and extremely versitile (you can use them in just about any field, along water banks, and heck ive even used mine to deer hunt with my ML'R in a cut corn field).

Cant ever go wrong with an extra goose flag or two...

In a swamp like setting, you can pretty much get most dabbling ducks in there, so mallards, wood ducks, teal, wigeon, pintails, and gadwals are decoys you can look into. Don't bother with diver dec's unless you plan on hunting big water. Depending on the size of your swamp, you may be able to pull some geese into there, so maybe some goose floaters.

good luck!

dan

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