I love duck hunting, and Teal season is a breath of fresh air for me. Finally here, pumped up like a kid on the night before Christmas. Hell, I can’t even sleep, laying there think of what the next morning will bring. Listen for the whistle of the wings of the first flock to buzz my decoy spreed. Now to me that’s what dreams are made of. I have 25 years of Southeast Louisiana roughest duck hunting under my belt. So listen up,

CUZ DIS CAJUN BOUT TO TELL U HOW WE GONE TO DO DIS LIKE DAT.

• DO YOUR HOMEWORK

Go out and scout, see where the ducks are, where they or flying from and also where they might be headed. One thing you want to keep in mind is Teal don’t like to be in the same place to long. Face it they are on there we to Mexico, so try to stay mobile. Ducks fly in this invisible highway, called flyways. Kinda like Cow trails, they get up and fly this patten everyday. So know where you flyways are.

• FEED

Find a pond that has natural feed. This will allow you the best place to hunt, simply because the ducks have probably already found this spot. But if you don’t have the natural feed, then feed them but make sure to follow all local game laws in your area or state. Some states may not allow feeding of wildlife. You can use rice, corn, milo, etc. Remember all the feed that is not natural has to be gone before you can hunt that hole.

• BLIND & BLIND LOCATION

This one is my favorite, simply because I have always been able to pick the perfect spot as to say. Thanks to my grandpa & father teaching me. Your blind location must be with the sun facing your back and the north wind coming from your back also. The reason for this is because ducks tend to land against the wind. So this keeps all the action in front of your face. Having the sun at your back is so that you can see them, you ever try to shoot a duck with the sun in your eyes! That makes for a very crappy morning. Now that you have your spot, there are many different types of blinds that you can build or even buy.

• PIROUGUE BLIND

A pirouette is a flat bottom canoe that us Cajuns get around the marsh in. Well the blind is quite simple. Place your boat or pirouette were you want it and put brush around it. Remember when brushing your blind only use natural brush. Look at what’s around you and use that. If your in a salt water marsh don’t use a willow tree. Ducks ain’t stupid, you might get luck once but your not going to be successful time and time again.

• STAND BLIND

This is a platform style blind with a bench or seats. Usually built with a couple of 2×4 boards and some ply wood. This is done so that you can be on a sturdy area while you hunt. Make the blind so that you can fit 2, 3, even 4 people, that is pretty much up to you. Keep in mind the bigger the blind the harder to make it blend in. Once you have your base or platform built and don’t forget to brush it up a bit.

• HOUSE BLIND

This is just what it sounds like a house all brushed up. These have seating for alot of hunters and have stoves for cooking and heaters. This type of blind I used for all day hunts.

• BOAT BLIND

This one is my favorite. Why, because it keeps you mobile, and you can move according to wind and also move as the sun changes throughout the day. Usually this is when you buy or make a pop up blind that is attached to you boat. Cabelas has them for about few hundred buck. Just put it on your boat brush it with grass matts you can buy at Cabelas, Academy Sports, or Wal-mart, then add a little of the native grass just to break it the outline. This well help your blind blend better and also hold together better.

• CALLING

Easy way to learn is to buy a CD. By many means a teal has a nasally quack (this is done by the female) and the male is a whistler. Usually the female is the big mouth and she is usually the one who is going to do all the yelling just like at home. Her quacks normally are going to be 4 quick notes starting off high and going down. Then the male is
peep, peep peep, peep peep, just quick little peeps on a teal whistle. See Haydels game calls for your teal whistle and female teal call.

• DECOYS AND DECOY PATTERNS

Face it you can’t get them in close without decoys. Buy some decoys, make sure that they are not to bright and don’t shine when the sun hits them. This will cause ducks to flare up and leave. Green head gear make the best but there are one of they also can be the more pricey of the decoys out there. There is kind of an art to decoy spreads. When piling decoys you may use the V Style set up or you can use the little piles set ups or even the scattered pile style. Each of these will work. You have to make the rite set up work for you. In all the style spreads I listed here don’t forget to leave your shooting lanes!!! Motion decoys also can play a big role in killing the hell out of sum ducks! Good idea of motion decoys come from MOJO Decoys. A great line of all kinds of duck decoys!

If you fallow these simple steps your should to have a great teal season. Thanks for reading and happy hunting! Andre’ Matherne Owner of Nonk Dre’s Custom Calls

For more information on Nonk Dre’s Custom Calls contact Andre by clicking here and follow him and his great duck calls on Facebook. Nonk Dre’s Custom Calls

Alpha Mudlite Realtree® AP® Hunting Boots

• A boot made for comfort
• Scent control
• Lightweight
• 7.0 mm neoprene for cold to extreme cold weather
• brush tuff puncture resistant upper material for long term durability
• 100% waterproof

Venom Scent HD™ Realtree® APG HD® Snake Boots

• 360º Snake Guard Protection
• 100% Water Proof
• Scent-Free protection
• abrasion resistant toe cap
• comfort
• Side – Zip for easy on and off

These are just a few things that make these two sets of boots worth paying the money for. If my feet get cold in the dead winter then I am ready to head back to the house or camp. My feet do not sweat in these boots unlike some of the other hunting boots that I have had in the past. We all want comfort and it is here with LaCrosse. We all want 100% water proof barrier and it is also here. No more leaving the stand early because of the normal issues you may have with other style boots. Sit all day and never think of your feet getting cold or hurting from the long walk in. The days of buying boots for hunting are just about to become the end when you buy from LaCrosse Footwear.

I have used feeders for some time now on my hunting property in Alabama. The only down fall to supplemental feeding here in Alabama is that you have to have all feeder’s and feed up ten day’s before you head out to hunt. So this only allows me to feed from February 1st through March 1st then the feed has to come up and be gone for ten day’s before March 15th for opening day of Spring time turkey hunting. Then the feeder’s get placed back out on May 1st and will stay up until ten days before opening day of  bow season which starts here in Alabama in October of every year.

This is still not enough feeding time for my deer to feed like they should. They should be able to feed 365 day’s a year so they get the maximum fed protein that they need to grow big antler’s. This is where when I am not feeding I always try to make an attempt to have some kind of high protein food source out there for them. This is also where the food plots come into play and other type’s of crop food source that may be still left standing through turkey season. In most places there isn’t one strip of crop food left after January of each year.

I have found out by having a gravity fed feeder around during the months that there is no hunting will allow you to feed and feed correctly. Yes! trough style feeder’s work in this case also. By allowing a deer to feed when he get’s ready to feed will be a plus for your hunting property more than you realize. You do take the chance of having more deer feed at night but if you get in there and add the feed at scheduled times and stay out of the area as much as possible the deer will get use to feeding more in the day light hours.

This is where staying out of a place and leaving it as scent free as possible will pay off for you on opening day. I always wear gloves and scent free boots when taking time to go and place more feed into my feeder’s. This just helps me when the season starts. Even though bucks are into their summer time patterns and running together this will allow you to scout from a distance or check game camera’s only when necessarily. I check my game camera’s only when I go to add feed. This is like killing two birds with one stone.

My new choice of gravity fed feeder’s is the Buck Eye Feeder. Designer Steve Brown has brought a whole new meaning to feeding your wildlife. He has designed a feeder to allow wildlife to feed on a regular bases instead of allowing them to only feed at certain times. The Buck feeds, grows faster, and antlers get larger in twice the time.

Example:

If a deer eats 12 lbs of protein in one hour at a gravity feeder then it allows him to get his belly full. If he eats under a spin cast feeder he is not getting the whole 12 lbs that he would normally eat due to other deer eating at the site with him. Less food means less protein in this matter! Dose this make sense? So by allowing a deer to feed at their own pace may mean better overall health and larger antler development on them bucks that you seek. Remember that a buck need to have at least a 16% to 20% protein diet for 365 days a year and not just 4 to7 months of that diet to grow its fully developed set of antlers.

Black is the original Stedi-Stock Camera, Range Finder, Spotting Scope or Video Camera Shoulder Brace. Shoulder Stabilizer that is ultra-light weight at only 6 ounces, durable and constructed of Hi-Strength Nylon complete with shoulder Strap. It gives the user STABILITY with MOBILITY and keeps your optical device right there for instant use. Take the blur out of your photos, get a bounce back at longer ranges with fewer clicks on your Range Finder, Carry your Spotting Scope with you in the field without a bulky cumbersome tripod, and take the BOUNCE out of your Videos. You can read more about the Stedi-Stock at the Stedi-Stock web site.

With the Stedi-Stock you will never ever have the trouble of shaky video or out of focused pictures anymore. This invention was created by Harold Hurst of Gordonville, Texas.  An avid hunter and outdoors-men of today’s society. People like Harold is what makes the Great outdoors what it is today and we would like to thank him for joining us here at Hello Hunting. When I first talk to him on the phone he had taught me so much about his invention. I was up for the Stedi-Stock Challenge from the get-go.

At the Stedi-Stock company they are here to help you with all your stabilizing needs when it comes to creating new memories. After all creating new outdoor memories is what life should be about. As I have said in the past so many TV Outdoor Shows use all kinds of of camera arms to mount their cameras to. But if they would just try the Stedi-Stock one time they would throw all others away.

Well once again we are giving something away for the Month of August just like we did in July. Donald K. Allen from Lumberton, North Carolina won a gift pack valued at over $50, that was sponsored by Rex Holmes Jr. and his Vapor Trail Scents company. Well now we have a whole other contest starting up and the rules are simply the same as last month.

The Rules

The rules are simple once again.

• Leave a comment on this post in the comment box below or any other post on the site between August 1st and August 31st. It can be about yourself, the site, hunting in general, or just to say that you want some free stuff.
• Make sure you leave a valid email address in the email box that is provided.

We’d really love for you to continue to browse the site a bit, get involved, and leave comments on other articles.  Also feel free to let us know if there is anything else that you would like to see or read about and we will do our best at getting it on the site. If you are interested in writing for Hello Hunting just contact Shannon Wood, Justin Tadlock, or Shannon Lee for more info on getting started. We’d even love for you to join our Facebook group. Of course, these aren’t requirements for entering the contest. We’d just love to build up our hunting community here even larger than it already is.

August Gift Pack includes:

A  camo super combo package which means it comes with the following:

Stedi-Stock shoulder mount with the Quick Release Attachment, the SuperClamp, monopod and the Quick Rifle Rest. A valued gift pack worth well over $125 could be your just for following the rules and leaving a response on Hello Hunting. 

The contest runs until the last day of August. We will email the randomly-picked winner once the contest is over so we can send you some free stuff.

I doubt you can find any type of hunter who has not dreamed of going on a guided hunt. Over the last decade, that dream has become a reality for many hunters partly because of the immense growth in the number of outfitters in the United States and other parts of the world. For many of these outfitters, it is a way for them to make additional income besides their primary profession or help local farmers advertise their crop land that they ordinarily would not allow the public to hunt. For these reasons, it is fairly easy for a hunter to shop around and find their hunt of a lifetime at a price he/she can afford.

My husband, Travis Lee, and a few of his close friends have had the opportunity, for the last several years, to travel to Sullivan County Missouri and hunt with Adam Moore with Moore Hunting Properties. The trip takes 16 hours to drive from our house, so Travis always allows two days for travel time. He prefers the do it yourself hunts that Adam offers where the hunter scouts the property and hangs his own stands during the 5 day hunt.

The first day at camp was a short day due to travel and the guys spent their time purchasing their license, scouting, and hanging stands. Right off, Travis located a 40 acre clover field with huge scrapes on the back corner and a creek bottom that the deer were using to travel from their bedding area to the clover field.

While hanging his Old Man lock-on tree stand in smaller oak tree in the creek bottom, Travis heard a limb break about 50 yards across the creek and spotted a buck he guessed to measure in the 140′s headed to the clover field looking for does. Travis couldn’t believe that the buck was oblivious to the noise he was making in the tree, as he continued out into the open field. The other guys also found great buck sign and hung their stands where they felt confident they would take a big buck. The guys had certainly had buck fever as they shared their findings over dinner that evening.

Knowing that his stand was more of an afternoon stand, Travis chose to sit there the first morning of the hunt and while he saw several mature does, no shooter bucks appeared. One of his traveling partners, Johnny, did however see numerous rack bucks and took a mature 130 inch 8 point buck at about 15 yards with his Hoyt Katera compound bow and 125 grain Thunderhead Broadhead.

The afternoon hunt did, however, prove to be an eventful evening of hunting for Travis. After getting in his stand at 3 P.M., he watched 4 smaller bucks and numerous turkey gobblers feed in the cow pasture that adjoined the creek bottom and clover field. About 30 minutes before dark, Travis heard footsteps coming up the creek bottom and a mature doe passed by him at about 20 steps and entered the clover field.

Not long after, Travis heard heavy foot steps in the creek bottom again and could tell it was a larger deer approaching his stand. Through the brush, he could tell it was a monster buck and his heart began to race as the buck worked his way through the creek bottom and closer to Travis’s stand. The buck froze at 35 steps behind some limbs and began to act nervous as he licked at some branches where the doe had passed earlier.

Finally, he began to inch closer and Travis drew his Bowtech 82nd Airborne compound bow equipped with Rage 100 grain 2 blade expandable broadhead and prepared for a shot at the giant buck. Upon penetration of the arrow, the buck took about 8 steps toward the clover field and fell dead. He had bagged a 160 and 3/8 inch typical 10 point that sported 11 inch brow tines (as scored by a MO Game and Fish Officer). The buck weighed in at 275 pounds.

Travis and friends have since traveled to Missouri to hunt a few other times, but have passed up other bucks that were close, but not quite as big as the giant Missouri white tail buck that now resides on our wall courtesy of Tunnage Taxidermy. If you are looking for an exciting and affordably priced hunt, give Moore Hunting Properties a shout. I am certain Adam will be more than happy to try to fit your needs. Travis is certainly pleased with his trophy buck.

Harold Hurst from Texas sent me a message asking me if I had ever seen a small piece of equipment called the Stedi Stock. I had told him that I had never even heard of it. So his reaction is, “Hey I will send you one”, and you tell me how it works. I had called Mr. Harold up and told him that I would love to try out his invention and to my surprise when it came to my door steps I was very happy at what I saw. Now at this point it has done everything that it is suppose to do and even more.

I will continue to put it through test and see how the outcome of the test go about. There are so many camera arms out there on the market today and the cost of them are sky high. The cost of the Stedi Stock is only $29.95 plus $5.00 shipping. You can get the better deal and get the camo super combo package for $109.00 plus shipping. This comes with everything from the steady stock, mono pod, super clamp, quick release, and even the rifle rest. Everything that you need is all in one bundle ready for you to film your next hunt. You can learn more about the Stedi Stock just by clicking here. “ Stedi Stock ”

I have noticed that I have yet to find any flaws in the making of this equipment yet at this time. Everything can fit into a back pack for easy carrying. The set up time to put all of it together is less than 1 minute. that is a plus compared to hanging a stand and strapping on a tree arm to mount the camera.

It’s durability is strong and water resistant. If you can hold a gun up to your shoulder then you can hold up the Steadi Stock with a camera mounted to it. This small set up is going to change the way hunter’s film their hunts from now on.

Just mount your camera, aim and shoot! It is that simple and that easy even a child can do it. In fact I would put my name behind it and this is something that I don’t do very often for those of you that know me. The size of everything in the whole package makes time easier for not just the set up but as I have already said once, carrying it as well.

There will be no more climbing out of tree and then doing a follow up shot with a tripod. The mono pod can handle that for you. In fact you want even need the mono pod unless you just want to use it. The Stedi Stock will do all the work for you.

Knowing that there are so many gimmicks out there in the outdoor industry today it is simple to see that this is not one of them. Think back about ten years or so when TV shows were using those cameras that weighed 25 lbs. If they had the Stedi Stock back then like we do today all that shaky footage would have never been there.

Thank God for all the new inventions that have come out and those of them that work are great. There are some out there that work. But the question is ” How Well ” do they work? There is greatness and there is fair working conditions when it comes to products in the outdoor industry.

So take just a few minutes of you time and check this product out and you too may be ordering you one before hunting season roles around. This will make a great gift to any hunter and could even lead you into filming or taking pictures of your hunts to come. ” Tell them that Hello Hunting sent you. ”

Good Luck!

Let us start with tents.The Elite line offers the ultimate family camping experience and is great for extended camping excursions. Easy to follow instructions are sewn into the carry bag of the Elite Montana 8 person tent by Coleman. Coleman camping gear is among the oldest companies in the outdoor world. negative angle windows, self-rolling windows, hinged door, and shock-corded poles make setup and storage simple. The tent includes remote controlled light and replaceable 15 watt spiral fluorescent tube. The light runs up to 22 hours on low on 8 D batteries which are not included. The average cost of this tent will sale for about $239.

Next on the agenda is coolers for keeping you food and drinks cold. Colman also has some of the top of the line coolers for you. A good cooler will sale for over $100 and the 150 quart white Marine cooler will be the one to have. It holds 223 cans plus 55 lbs of ice. The Marine drain fits standard garden hose for draining and it’s split lid with separate latches and fish measuring scale along with it’s exterior case has molded-in fish scale. If this cooler doesn’t hold your beverages then no other will.

My next pick for top outdoor gear is clothing. The World Wide Sportsman XPS series has become very big for Bass Pro Shops. My pick for shirts is the very light weight long sleeve shirt on the XPS solar guard shirt. It is made of quick-dry 100% nylon supplex with Solar Guard UPF50 protection. It also features a roll-up collar, plus mesh-lined vented cape back and underarm put zippers. Includes a waterproof pouch with bungee clip that can be secured in the chest pocket. The pants are also UPF50 protected and have zipper style legging at the knees to turn into shorts. They are also light weight and very comfortable.

At last I can only bring so much so my last pick will be on grilling and stove type gear. I will give Lodge Brand cooking pots. These pots are made of top notch steel and can last you a lifetime. The weight of these pots makes them worth cooking in for several years to come. The camping stove would also come from Coleman and there are so many of these type stoves to choose from. Well I hope I have brought you good info on a few top grade items to have for you next outdoor outing. Keep checking back to Hello Hunting for more great things to come in the future.