Duck Hunting | Foolproof System to Keep Your Dog Happy

How to Keep Your Four Legged Friend Healthy

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If you’ve ever gone duck hunting alongside a well-trained and good-mannered canine, you know that the experience is unmatched by anything else out there. It’s an absolute privilege to watch one of these types of disciplined and skilled dogs retrieve downed waterfowl from the chilly pond or frosty fields you’re hunting over. If you raise hunting dogs from scruffy puppies and spend the hours, days, weeks, and months training them, you’ll especially appreciate the work that is necessary to get them to that point.

But more than that, they become like one of the family – a true hunting buddy. A good hunting dog is much more than just a household pet. Maybe it’s their eternal optimism or constant grin, even when things aren’t going your way and you occasionally miss a duck or two (hey, it happens). You just can’t help but feel the same contagious excitement for being out there. Once you’ve hunted with your four legged friend and things click, you know it could never be the same without them perched beside you in the swamp or flooded timber.

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Making Your Own Luck │ The Magic of the Jerk Rig System

The Hard Core Snap Back Jerk Rig│ Hold the Upper Hand This Fall

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The difference between a successful hunt and going home empty handed boils down to two things; being in the right place at the right time and tricking the eyeballs of the waterfowl that you are after. As most duck hunters know, being in the right place at the right is simply a product of good scouting. Being able to fool ducks and geese really comes down to realistic waterfowl decoys, with realistic set up and movement.

Hard core magnum mallard decoys can help any waterfowl hunter provide an extremely realistic decoy spread. These decoys provide a sense of realism that is unmatched by any other decoy on the market. They are extremely lightweight, and provide motion in your spread with even the slightest breeze, and we all know how important that is! These duck decoys have a durable construction, and will hold up against all the wear and tear that even the most dedicated and Hard Core waterfowl hunters can dish out during the course of a duck season.

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Too much of a good thing │ When to pull the spinner?

When to use a spinning wing decoy│ Be more effective on late season ducks

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There is absolutely no doubt that motion or spinning wing decoys have revolutionized the way we chase waterfowl. If you have hunted waterfowl long enough, then you may recall the day leading up to the introduction of these fine hunting accessories, and what it was like the very first time you utilized a spinning wing decoy. For many, these decoys became an absolute necessity that we wouldn’t go duck hunting without.

Since the introduction of the spinning wing decoy, many waterfowl have fallen victim to its charm and realism, providing many happy and successful trips afield for countless waterfowl hunters across country. While we never hit the water without at least one, if not an arsenal of spinning wing decoys, sometimes too much of a good thing can prove to be hindrance rather helping, especially when trying to fool late season waterfowl.
Later in the waterfowl season, ducks and geese become extremely wary, as anyone who has hunted waterfowl can tell you. Towards the tail end of the season, these birds of seen it all and heard it all. When situations like these happen, you sometimes have to cut loose of the tactics and methods that have proven effective during the previous weeks and not be afraid to go against the grain. With the popularity of spinning wing decoys growing, more waterfowl are exposed to these decoys during the course of the waterfowl season, and there is no doubt that they can be as effective on the last day of the duck season as they were on the first. However, by the end of the waterfowl season, many of the ducks that you are hunting, especially if you are hunting public ground, will be associating a loud “BOOM!” with sight of those spinning wing decoys.

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Out of Sight, Out of Mind | Realtree Camo Can Make All the Difference

The Right Camo for the Job│ Realtree Has You Covered

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Every hunter knows just how important good camouflage is, and year in and year outRealtree Camo has made the difference between success and failure for many hunters across the country. For those of us with the passion to chase waterfowl, concealment is the name of the game.

Waterfowl, much like many game species have amazing eyesight and can pick off even the most seasoned hunter if they are not concealed to the max. It takes time, patience, skill, and most importantly the proper equipment to truly be successful. Being able to fool a wide-eyed mallard duck or Canada goose can be incredibly difficult even in the most advantageous conditions. Investing in versatile gear with best camo pattern available can help you put more meat on the table, and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

If you have enjoyed duck hunting or goose hunting even for a short while, you have surely come to realize the importance of concealment. Many waterfowl hunters are extremely diligent when it comes to camouflaging their blinds and boats, but sometimes fall short on personal concealment. Here at Hard Core, we believe in checking all the boxes and leaving nothing to chance. We will never hit the woods or the water with a versatile Realtree camo pattern like Max-5 covering everything from our hats to boots.

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Waterfowl Identification | Tips for the Upcoming Season

Tips to Improve Your Waterfowl Species ID

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Imagine a beautiful, crisp fall morning. The air is quiet, and you can see your reflection in the mirrored surface of the lake you’re perched on. Suddenly, you hear the sound of whistling wings above your head, approaching your decoys fast. Are you confident that you’ll be able to quickly identify what species of waterfowl is overhead in the dim light of dawn? Or is there a little voice of doubt in the back of your head? Shoot or don’t shoot?!

Having good waterfowl identification skills is obviously important to make sure you don’t exceed your bag limits. But it’s also just a skill that you should work to develop further each year. If you call yourself a hard core duck hunter (or any hunter, for that matter), you should work to master your craft over time and learn as much about your game animal as possible. That’s what ethical hunting and being hard core is all about. You respect the animal enough to make good hunting decisions. Plus, knowing your ducks from a distance is just plain fun – it’s an enjoyable hobby to sit in your duck boat and just identify ducks, to say nothing about hunting them! Now let’s dive in (forgive the pun) to the juicy tips and techniques.

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It’s Time! │ The 2015 Waterfowl Season Is Here

The 2015 Waterfowl Season Primer

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While some unseasonable warm weather are currently gripping some of the Midwest bringing above average temperatures, high humidity, and soon heavy rains it won’t be long until the winds will change. It’s time for our 2015 – 16 waterfowl primer.

For our 2015 season primer we will start by looking at the current waterfowl populations and breeding activity and what that means for duck hunting and goose hunting opportunities this fall. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services recently released the results of their breeding bird’s surveys and despite continued habitat loss in the high plains either due to dry conditions or habitat conversion, waterfowl numbers remain high and are similar to last year’s numbers. This year’s count show the breeding bird numbers at 49.5 million breeding birds which is extremely exciting if you love to pull the trigger of waterfowl as much as we do!

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Get in and Get Out | Techniques for Long Term Success

Geese? │ Get in and Get out!

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If you were to ask any seasoned waterfowl hunter what the keys to a successful hunt are, you would hear a wide range of comments from decoy placement to location and calling toconcealment. If you were to ask those same waterfowl hunters what it would take to enjoy consistent waterfowl action at their favorite hunting spot for an entire waterfowl season, we would bet the answer would be unanimous, get in and get out!

When it comes to duck hunting, goose hunting and waterfowl management in general there are two very distinct categories to consider: habitat management and hunter management. The habitat management aspect of waterfowl hunting is fairly self-explanatory. Waterfowl hunters work all season long to stimulate the seed producing moist soil plants that provide the necessary food source for waterfowl during the majority of the year, as well as stimulating invertebrates through water level management and even planting someannual grains like corn, beans or milo. These factors of duck hunting and goose hunting are what most hunters focus on and think about during the summer, and with good reason. Many hunter spend a lot time and money into ensuring that the table is set come November, however, surprisingly fewer practice the other factor, hunter management.

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