So I have this buddy in one of my classes who talks smack all day long about how duck and goose hunting is the hardest hunting there is. I usually jump on this immediately cuz i'm a serious bowhunter. Is there any possibilty that hunting with a gun is harder than a bow? Just wondering if there is some bird hunters on here.
Tell him to try it with a bow then he can talk smack. Seriousely, it can be done with Flu Flus. Brooks Johnson does it on T.V. I would like to give it a try one day. As with deer hunting with a bow vs deer hunting with a gun. They have to get much closer. I have never hunted waterfowl so I can't really say either way.
It would be much harder for me. I wouldn't have a clue how to go out and set up for a duck hunt. I've never been, and unless I'm lucky enough to tag out on bucks one season I doubt I ever will. I have some friends and family members that live for it, so the opportunity to go is always there.
I waterfowl hunt a lot since I am in Maryland..i find it really fun but bow hunting i would say is a lot tougher because the deer aren't as easy to trick
I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that he starts the smack talk. Basically his argument is bait piles. All he assumes is that a hunter lays out some corn and a deer comes in broad day light and that its so easy. I wouldn't argue cuz I know its a waste of time because I do know that hunting whether with bow or a gun has its challenges but I like the hunting I do so much that I can't let some ignorant schmuck talk crap bout my obsession. lol
From my experience bow hunting is MUCH harder. I duck hunt much more than i bow hunt. I find duck hunting is more exciting beings its usually always shooting and you mostly always kill something. But it is nowhere near the challenge of bowhunting although ive only been a few times so far.
being a successul bowhunter is harder in my opinion, but the work in the field for waterfowling is much harder IMO.
Duck hunting is by FAR my favorite thing to do out doors. And if your hunting public land without a boat. Then yes duck hunting is harder than bow hunting. With a boat and some good buddies it's more relaxing than hard. I would not trade anything for my duck hunting.
waterfowl is hard, the work that is. a lot of calling too. some of the shots can be tricky. i would say any hunting is hard. if it was easy well you all would know the answer to that one. we can all agree that its all fun.
I have Deer and Duck hunted with guns in the past. my family, whose idols are the Duck commanders, are big hunters so i have had many opportunities to go. When the ducks are flying in it is crazy. you can usually tell if your the one picking off the duck but sometimes its your partner so you never really know. I shot my first deer with a rifle when i was 16 out west. It wasn't very hard and i didn't really practice much before the hunt because of school. I would say bowhunting for deer is more fun and a bigger challenge but duck hunting is also a big challenge. i don't know if i could argue the two against each other since it is a totally different type of hunting. Just my thoughts
I have been bowhunting now since I was 15 (12 years). When I went of to college in Minnesota it was located right on the Missisippi river. Since I played football I didnt have time to deer hunt as set up time through out the year and scouting takes alot of time and football did not allow for that time. So I decided to start duck hunting. I met some buddies up there who showed me the ropes. We always hunted on public land and hunted every chance we got (at least three times a week). After hunting ducks for 5 years in college (I tore my ACL, thats why it took me 5 years, not because I'm Slow, ha) I can say without a doubt duck hunting is much easier. You go out the night before find where they are flying and set up there the next morning. It was almost always a guarantee. You don't have to get up as early, don't have to be scent free or near as motionless, noise is much less of a factor, and your chances of success are much higher, depending on what your goals are as a hunter. To be a serious bowhunter takes a lot of time and effort all year round. Duck hunting is a blast don't get me wrong. To me serious bowhunting is borderline physcotic with all the prep time and dedictation, but when you walk up on that big buck laying on the ground it's 1000x more rewarding.
I agree with this statement. Finding ducks is just a matter of watching where they fly to. Walking a mile or more in waders through tall grass with a bag full of decoys, a shotgun and a blind bag filled with ammo is a pretty tough workout. Then, once you do get out to the pothole, you're usually walking through knee-high silt. After that, it's standing in the cattails and waiting and calling. Then if you are lucky enough to kill a duck, you have to walk through the silt again and back to get it. Field hunting is much easier. Depending on the field, you might even get to drive right to the spot where you plan on hunting. Setup all your decoys and blinds and drive back out. If you can't drive though, you have to carry that stuff out with you. Even if you have bags for your decoys, you'll be making several trips back and forth to set them up. I've hunted with guys that will put out 8 dozen or more goose decoys. Once you're out there though, it's a pretty easy going morning, you lay down the whole time and only have to walk across a field for retrieves. I would disagree with the statement that bowhunters get up earlier for hunting than waterfowlers do. I've left at midnight to get to a spot, or even spent the night before sleeping in my car, just so I can make sure I get to hunt my spot. Either way, I'm usually at the water or field more than an hour before hunting so I can get all the decoys set up and get quiet. Bowhunting has been another experience altogether. It requires a lot of walking, but I wouldn't say any of it is all that difficult. We don't have the same mountainous terrain here that some of you do out west. But we have some places where the change in topography will get you breathing heavy. Especially places along the rivers and such. I was climbing six story or taller hills all this weekend. Again, that's just walking though. Where I see the difficulty is the time put into it. You could just walk in a hunt if you wanted, but your much less likely to be as successful as you would with waterfowl. All of these veins of hunting require scouting throughout the year to truly be successful. So I can't say that off-season time invested is really that different, unless you are actively working some private land for deer. Even then, I'm not sure how much of private land work is done with machines or by hand. Also, you have those folks or situations where you just don't work all that hard for your game. As alluded previously, if you have a boat, hunting ducks can be pretty darn relaxing. If you can drive in a field, goose hunting is a blast without much effort. Even with deer, I know folks that walk out there back door and into a treestand and others that four-wheel pretty darn close to their stands.
Whoever says duck hunters do not have to wake up as early have never hunted public land in Oklahoma. If you want "the good spot" around here you will be spending the night at the refuge gate so you can be first in line. Even for a decent spot we leave our houses at 230 am. They both can be tough and both can be easy as BigStick pointed out. But you can't justify saying one is easier than the other.
I think waterfowl hunting for a first timmer is more intimidating than bow hunting. I've been interested in duck hunting in particular for a few years now but I don't know anyone real well to go with and I don't know how a beginner can learn how to identify species without killing some non legal species and ground checking them. I keep thinking about just going to some small ponds early season after woods ducks and once the migration starts end the season, but what if it's as addictive as bow hunting. Quite the pickel hey?
