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Stan: Absolutely great photography and a reminder of so-many blessings. There were no ducks for me and mine this year but I remain hopeful for what the next few years bring.

I remeber hitting my shooting Parker with a decoy weight! That and steel shot ended its duck hunting. It had shot it's share!

bill

There is no worse treatment of any shotgun than duck hunting from a boat. None.

I wonder sometimes, just how many shotguns are lying at the bottoms of rivers, lakes, sloughs, and swamps...
JR

Where abouts are you hunting Stan?

Hunting coastal PNW is hard on shotguns, I hunted out of a Marshrat as a layout and just sitting on the shore no blind or on a camo bucket following the tide in(so many stumps and logs that ducks didn't seemed to be to bothered by another lump on the beach)

Bank sitting on the Rio Grande, next week the marshrat will be on the Rio Grande also

We keep an AquaPod chained to the blind for long retrieves in deep water, and I wouldn't even think of taking a fine gun out in that thing. I have hunted (a little) from a kayak and did not enjoy it. A friend in Nevada hunts only from a canoe, but he's always in shallow water and puts out stabilizers once he gets to where he wants to be. In a situation like that, I might take a nice gun. When I used to hunt with two of us in an 11' jon boat on fairly big water, I wouldn't take anything nicer than an 870, but that's me.

Michael, mostly around here in east-central Georgia, and on the L'Anguille, Cache, and White Rivers in eastern Arkansas, and Reelfoot Lake, TN for early teal.

My drifting the creeks and rivers for jump shooting is all here, near home. My favorite conditions for it is when a severe cold snap hits us, and it gets down in the 'teens. I wait until the morning after the last really cold night, to go. All the ponds and lakes are frozen over and all the ducks are in current where there is no ice. The numbers can be unbelievable. Very sporty shooting, trying to pick out drakes with the early morning sun in your eyes.

A great hole on the Cache, in the Rex Hancock Black Swamp:



A big brushed up blind on the L'Anguille:



Early morning ....... teal hole on Reelfoot:



If I had to start over looking for a rough duty duck gun I would likely find a tight 12 ga. Fox Model B with 30" barrels and try it. $500 gun ..... not much to lose if you go in the drink.

The two worst things that have happened to any of my guns out hunting had nothing to do with a boat.

Shooting carts are sometimes not kind to guns, either. I bought and installed a couple gun scabbards on mine, over 15 years ago, that are not seen often. They hold the gun very secure, but it can be removed and replaced quickly. It could be adapted to a boat very easily, and mounted horizontally.

https://www.scabbard.com



There is a strap that you can't see, that is tucked down inside at the top, that loops around the barrels to hold it in securely, but I don't use it unless I'm going some distance, as the design of the scabbard holds the gun very securely.

I love my aquapod. Once it's grassed up, I'm able to lie down undetected within ten yards of my dekes, sipping coffee, sometimes out in the middle of the marsh, where a blind or larger boat would flare birds. They usually have no idea I'm there until it's too late. I can also easily pick up and move a bit if the birds are in love with a different area of the marsh. I don't need a dog either, as I simply paddle over to get my birds. I'm 57, and have been duck hunting for 50 of those years, and I've hunted every way you can think of. This is my favorite method, and probably the most efficient and effective I've tried.