Moving Ducks...

[Mark Quinney]

anyone wanna buy a duckdo... ??

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

LOL, we had one duck whilst surface fishing last year that just wouldnt leave us alone! We'd wait till after dark to surface fish when they had 'gone to bed' but you just know there will be the odd insomniac duck that is gonna bug you all night. This one bugger we caught on flaoating bread THREE times in about an hour!!!

 

Had another occasion when a swan upended itself in 3 feet of water and ate my hook bait (and the hook).....some daft bint with a dog was giving me loads of abuse too! The swan was with its partner and FIVE almost grown up signets. I just offered her the rod and suggested she sort the problem out ......... needless to say she declined

 

Wonderif she poop and scooped?

 

..........anyway, I digress! Floating dog biscuits..........feed the ducks till they cant eat anymore and they wont come back. Remember they swell up to 4 times their dry size and they'll scoff em the moment they hit the water so they are stilld ry so give em terrible indigestion. Its worked for me......but obvious only for a relatively small number of ducks or it'll cost you an arm and a leg in dog biscuits!

Edited March 21, 2006 by Brumagem Phil

[gozzer]

One method of getting rid of swans, I don't know about a load of ducks, is to throw some wet mud on them.

Just a bit, and they go to clean the feathers, this keeps them occupied for a while, and does them no harm.

[Anderoo]

I'm starting to really hate ducks and especially swans! When I'm not fishing I love seeing them, but they seem intent on ruining every trip for me now. They're definitely bolder than they used to be. On my last session my mate had a swan get tangled in his line, and had to brave a beating to untangle it, and I caught a coot on legered maggots, which did its best to scratch me to pieces. For the whole session we had coots, swans and ducks diving (with various degrees of competence - i.e. the ducks were rubbish) on our baits and loosefeed, and surprise, we blanked.

 

A few weeks back I was deadbaiting on the Thames, and a grebe repeatedly swam down and took the smelt of my trace. I couldn't do anything to stop it. Aaarrrrgh!

 

I just remembered the other annoying thing about ducks - they're always walking through my bobbins, setting the alarms off and unclipping the bobbins, getting tangled and generally annoying the hell out of me.

 

Apparently a 22mm boilie keeps them 'occupied' for a while - they take a bit of swallowing (but do no harm)

[trevor2003]

Well lads

It must be payback time for my little quip about peanut butter on bread for ducks.

Just got in from a day session on my local club water and after a walk round the lake, found loads of carp holed up down the side of the island.

Set up there for the day and tried every bait/method/stick/particle mix etc etc etc you could ever imagine, but they were swimming about in their dozens, but just would not switch on and feed, water's still a bit cold yet, but the first time they have been moving in any quantity this year so far.

Well the moral of the story is totaly blanked of carp, but caught on bl--dy duck in the wing, so had a screaming run down the lake with a mallard on the end

Well got it on the bank in the end after a nightmare of a fight with it, unhooked and released and no apparant harm done to it.

But will keep my big mouth zipped about dealing with ducks on here from now on

[chris mc]

Glad to see it's not just me whos been haveing trouble with them lately,wounder if it's the time of year?Had a ok day today with them my self ,as i was fishing preety close in so waveing the old landing net did the trick today thank christ.Still never manerged to catch anything decent ha ended up fishing for bits had 30+ skimmers about 1/2 pound each carp just wern't haveing it at all.

[Anderoo]

I think a lot of the problem is clear water, i.e. they can see the bait on the bottom. Next time I'm going for dark baits and groundbait, maybe that'll help. Once they've seen it, it's game over

 

ANOTHER annoying thing about them is their stupid quacking. I was trying to sleep on my last session (middle of the night) and all these ducks were flapping around the bivvie quacking and honking away for hours, it was doing my head in!

[lilypad]

They don't have to see the bait on the bottom. The oils rising to the surface and the remnants left on the surface after casting or throwing it out is enough. Most of the waters I fish are not clear and they still get the location spot on.

Honking ducks? Must have been something they ate.

[Puzzled]

You get the impression from this thread that wildfowl can be a pain in the a*s when we're on the bank trying to tempt wild animals into our nets.

I agree, but let's please not forget that these annoying flapping, quacking, greedy groundbait guzzlers are also wild animals too and form part of the rich tapestry of the great outdoors that makes fishing in this country such an enjoyable pastime.

When we fish, we do so in the wild animals' backyard and they're probably as cheesed off about us being there as we may be with them being in our swim.

Live and let live eh?

[Anderoo]

You get the impression from this thread that wildfowl can be a pain in the a*s when we're on the bank trying to tempt wild animals into our nets.

I agree, but let's please not forget that these annoying flapping, quacking, greedy groundbait guzzlers are also wild animals too and form part of the rich tapestry of the great outdoors that makes fishing in this country such an enjoyable pastime.

When we fish, we do so in the wild animals' backyard and they're probably as cheesed off about us being there as we may be with them being in our swim.

Live and let live eh?

 

That will, of course, remain the official line

Although I don't think they're cheesed off about us being there, I reckon they love us turning up and throwing loads of free food at them, especially this time of year!