I agree with pretty much everything said in this thread. I do love my mojo for field duck hunts though. Never failed to shoot a limit of field ducks this year with the mojo running strong. I wish I would have bought the one with the remote control so I could turn it off when the geese are coming in.
Calls are like trucks, a lot of guys are brand loyal and what one guy loves another guy hates.
For me I really like the triple threat by duck commander. Only drawback is that I find after a while the three reeds tend to stick together from all the spit. I may buy a second one so half way through the hunt I can have a dry one.
As for goose calls, I'm still trying to find my go to. The thing about a goose call is that a pro can make a cheap call sound good and an amateur can make a good call sound like a kid's party toy. I learned this when I thought I was doing a reasonably good job with my call and I gave it to my buddy who proceeded to sound like a flock of geese by himself. So I know with my goose calling, my call is up for the task and I need to catch up.
For locations, you just need to put the miles on the truck and have a landowners map for the areas you want to hunt. I ended up getting lucky and finding a honey hole that was 12 minutes from my house this year and we did very well there. It was also difficult to get permission and I only ended up tracking down the owner after knocking on a few neighbor's doors. The owner lived out of province. Being so close to the city and not have to contend wth other hunters was nice. As with any hunting, scouting and knocking on doors is key. I love getting out after work and going for a drive to find where the roosts and feeding fields are.
We'll shoot over water for the first few weeks of the season and when the migratory birds start arriving we shift our focus to the fields. I think in 6 duck hunts down south this year we limited out on 5 of them, 2/2 over water and 3/4 in fields. One of the fields we forced a shoot on a smaller flock and only took 18 out of the 24 bird limit but our shooting could have been better and one had a band so I was happy. I also bought my mojo after this shoot, I think with the mojo we could have got them in closer.
My water spread is 24-36 duck floaters, 8 goose floaters and a mojo, and my field spread is the same as my water spread with 4-5 dozen extra geese decoys, a mix of full bodies and shells. Not sure if this is proven or not, but we tend to put out fewer greenheads in the early season as the real drakes will not have turned yet, and it seems to work for us.
I know these are generic tips, but along with the other things shared in this thread you should get started off in the right direction. Welcome to the addiction!
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