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Mendota trash

4K views 39 replies 18 participants last post by  Sgtstadanko707 
#1 ·
So my buddy gets to his spot other day when these guys set up right next to him. He told them they were too close but they didnt care and would not leave. Group of 5 guys. When I say close I mean mabe 45 yards. No common sense. How would you guys have delt with the situation had it been you they set up on?
 
#6 ·
I usually go stand right close to them in the open and say hey if your going to ruin my hunt guess I can ruin yours huh? No need to shout or get in a pissn match just stand there and hunt.....Seems to have worked well over the years as opposed to yelling and screaming or sitting there. The result is the same as no one gets birds...
 
#7 ·
mendotakiller said:
blackcloud that was a good one! haha sounds like lot 18 or 19! I woulda sat there and blew my speck call and mallard as hard as i could for hours. And shoot the gun in the air if you think a bird is going to fly by. damn....what a sausage fest!!
I find it funny how you were complaining about this exact thing you said you'd do in another post..... and while your sitting here doing that your ruining the hunting for others in the area. Great idea sparky! :thumbsup:
 
#8 ·
The joys of free roam and public hunting... Year after year thread after thread about the same thng happening or someone shooting high or wide or moving in on your spot etc etc... It is what it is you can either adapt join a club or take up bowling.... But for the love of God please stop complaining on a site where everyone is ethical, no one shoots high, everyone has a trained dog, everyone puts at least 250 yards between them and the next group and never leaves trash in the field... You are preaching to those who are perfect in every way..

I think maybe instead of creating threads go stand on a levee and lecture those who walk by and tell them how to hunt ethically...Kinda like the Krisners at the airport... :help: :help: :help:
 
#9 ·
I had a pair of guys set up within no joke 20 yds of my decoys at Gray Lodge this weekend. In the morning when they were coming out they asked if we were setting upwhere we were and of course I said yes. They said they would back off down the pond. Then close to shoot time I notice their head lamps 20 yds from my decoys on the other side of the tules. After they shoot my first swing bird at 80yds, I kindly ask them why they thought backing of down the pond meant 20yds from my decoys. They moved back a ways but got bolder with their shooting. Scraping at 80-100yds. Is what it is on the refuges and especially at Gray Lodge. Would be nice to afford a club or a lease but just isn't in the cards.
 
#12 ·
Free roam totally sucks. You're just inviting some jack asses to ruin your hunt by allowing them to invade your space, which is open to anyone who wants it. Hunters will for ever try to sneak around so nobody will know where they're hunting, oblivious to the fact that you are making enough noise, where anyone who gives a crap will easily figure out roughly where the ducks are being shot at. It baffles me to no end why anyone who hunts Mendota regularly, wouldn't push for a draw. It would solve many problems with that place, and put an end to all the fights and complaints, which I have found to be the norm there. Of course if there was a daily draw, you guys would probably complain about not getting picked in the top 20 every time. You guys should be happy it isn't a lot worse, because as the water gets fewer and further between, it will get ugly.
 
#13 ·
yellowdog53 said:
The joys of free roam and public hunting... Year after year thread after thread about the same thng happening or someone shooting high or wide or moving in on your spot etc etc... It is what it is you can either adapt join a club or take up bowling.... But for the love of God please stop complaining on a site where everyone is ethical, no one shoots high, everyone has a trained dog, everyone puts at least 250 yards between them and the next group and never leaves trash in the field... You are preaching to those who are perfect in every way..

I think maybe instead of creating threads go stand on a levee and lecture those who walk by and tell them how to hunt ethically...Kinda like the Krisners at the airport... :help: :help: :help:
One of these internet tough duck hunter is going to piss off the wrong person and there will be hell to pay. I have other things to worry about than someone ruining my day.

I had one run in with a guy who was telling me that I shouldn't shoot hens because people like me are killing off the ducks. I tried to explain that predators and habit lost plays more into duck population than killing hens but he wouldn't listen. He knew everything except to bring his Type A daily pass.
 
#14 ·
PaulyQuackers said:
Free roam totally sucks. You're just inviting some jack asses to ruin your hunt by allowing them to invade your space, which is open to anyone who wants it. Hunters will for ever try to sneak around so nobody will know where they're hunting, oblivious to the fact that you are making enough noise, where anyone who gives a crap will easily figure out roughly where the ducks are being shot at. It baffles me to no end why anyone who hunts Mendota regularly, wouldn't push for a draw. It would solve many problems with that place, and put an end to all the fights and complaints, which I have found to be the norm there. Of course if there was a daily draw, you guys would probably complain about not getting picked in the top 20 every time. You guys should be happy it isn't a lot worse, because as the water gets fewer and further between, it will get ugly.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe a lot of us like it just the way it is and always has been. If you don't like it, go hunt a blind somewhere else where the birds know exactly what the round mound is. Sorry, but I would rather have an opportunity at birds decoying in rather than having to pass shoot every bird.

Mendota is a huge refuge, if you don't like someone so close, hunt a different lot or move yourself because they obviously don't have a problem with you being so close. Sorry but this is a two way street.

Spaced blinds and assigned ponds are BS. They do not improve the experience. Guys still sky scrape, call at "your birds", and trash all of the vegetation around the blinds. Like others have said, get a blind in a club......
 
#15 ·
PaulyQuackers said:
It baffles me to no end why anyone who hunts Mendota regularly, wouldn't push for a draw. It would solve many problems with that place, and put an end to all the fights and complaints,
PaulyQuackers said:
Disagree.

Pauly, head up to Los Banos, Kesterson, Yolo, Sac, Delevan (just to name a few) refuges.....try those blinds out for 2 or 3 seasons and let us know if all of the problems are solved in those places, and said blinds, (which in the end, are "draws"...) put an end to all of the "fights" and complaints.

Mendota is not an instant gratification place..... especially this year, especially any January Saturday and especially without 2 or 3 seasons of scouting, patience and learning many, multiple spots all across the area.
 
#16 ·
matt-greene said:
PaulyQuackers said:
Free roam totally sucks. You're just inviting some jack asses to ruin your hunt by allowing them to invade your space, which is open to anyone who wants it. Hunters will for ever try to sneak around so nobody will know where they're hunting, oblivious to the fact that you are making enough noise, where anyone who gives a crap will easily figure out roughly where the ducks are being shot at. It baffles me to no end why anyone who hunts Mendota regularly, wouldn't push for a draw. It would solve many problems with that place, and put an end to all the fights and complaints, which I have found to be the norm there. Of course if there was a daily draw, you guys would probably complain about not getting picked in the top 20 every time. You guys should be happy it isn't a lot worse, because as the water gets fewer and further between, it will get ugly.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe a lot of us like it just the way it is and always has been. If you don't like it, go hunt a blind somewhere else where the birds know exactly what the round mound is. Sorry, but I would rather have an opportunity at birds decoying in rather than having to pass shoot every bird.

Mendota is a huge refuge, if you don't like someone so close, hunt a different lot or move yourself because they obviously don't have a problem with you being so close. Sorry but this is a two way street.

Spaced blinds and assigned ponds are BS. They do not improve the experience. Guys still sky scrape, call at "your birds", and trash all of the vegetation around the blinds. Like others have said, get a blind in a club......
I would bet money you are one of the guys who has YOUR spot and hunts it no matter how close anyone else is....
 
#17 ·
spoonysmaker said:
matt-greene said:
PaulyQuackers said:
Free roam totally sucks. You're just inviting some jack asses to ruin your hunt by allowing them to invade your space, which is open to anyone who wants it. Hunters will for ever try to sneak around so nobody will know where they're hunting, oblivious to the fact that you are making enough noise, where anyone who gives a crap will easily figure out roughly where the ducks are being shot at. It baffles me to no end why anyone who hunts Mendota regularly, wouldn't push for a draw. It would solve many problems with that place, and put an end to all the fights and complaints, which I have found to be the norm there. Of course if there was a daily draw, you guys would probably complain about not getting picked in the top 20 every time. You guys should be happy it isn't a lot worse, because as the water gets fewer and further between, it will get ugly.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe a lot of us like it just the way it is and always has been. If you don't like it, go hunt a blind somewhere else where the birds know exactly what the round mound is. Sorry, but I would rather have an opportunity at birds decoying in rather than having to pass shoot every bird.

Mendota is a huge refuge, if you don't like someone so close, hunt a different lot or move yourself because they obviously don't have a problem with you being so close. Sorry but this is a two way street.

Spaced blinds and assigned ponds are BS. They do not improve the experience. Guys still sky scrape, call at "your birds", and trash all of the vegetation around the blinds. Like others have said, get a blind in a club......
I would bet money you are one of the guys who has YOUR spot and hunts it no matter how close anyone else is....
That's what I was getting the feeling of to.
An IGM ( I got mine) type of guy.
 
#18 ·
Pretty funny. I have been hunting the refuge for 25 years. There are 10 or 15 places that during any give day, I may hunt. If I wanted someone sitting in my back pocket, I would hunt different lots than the ones which are very popular.

Every year this topic comes up because two guys can't work it out. It is a huge refuge, work it out.
 
#19 ·
Whats there to work out. You've been in the rez line since thursday. Put that time and effort in. You get to the spot first. Lugged that pile of gear approximately 1.2 miles. Set up in the best spot in the pond and then here comes yahoo setting up 40 yards away and wont leave. Only working out should be him leaving.
 
#20 ·
So I guess what I'm hearing all of you saying is that if you make a place nice and neat, establish order and invoke a limit to the number of hunters per zone, it will draw large crowds, provide limited opportunity, and allow yahoo's to inevitably beat down all cover in the huntable section of that zone. I agree that does happen to some extent, but from my own experience hunting in a different state, if the area was all that great, there would be way too many unwanted strangers breathing down your neck every time you go, if it was open to all. I've seen these areas get so overcrowded they became a ghost town in just a few days. Bringing your own portable blind would be the least of your problems, if you get picked good enough to go to one of the better spots that gets heavily used and abused, and you would be able to report people who don't have any respect and chose to trash the place, because it would be on file who hunted there. Other than for disabled people, I don't understand why they put permanent blinds in public areas, when you can just find cover and hunt behind it, or bring your own cover, simple as that. They always end up getting trashed for various reasons anyway.

I have only gone duck hunting once since I moved here in 2003, and is was difficult not knowing where to go, or where to avoid confrontation, I had nothing to shoot at, but it was still awesome to be out there. You guys always refer to the Chico area to make all of your points, but if you asked people around the country, when a place is really good, a draw is the only way to keep hunters in check. Sorry if you don't like what I am saying, but I'm just trying to bring a little wisdom to these posts. I don't claim to know anything about hunting in California, I'm just commenting on what people around here are saying.
 
#21 ·
PaulyQuackers said:
So I guess what I'm hearing all of you saying is that if you make a place nice and neat, establish order and invoke a limit to the number of hunters per zone, it will draw large crowds, provide limited opportunity, and allow yahoo's to inevitably beat down all cover in the huntable section of that zone. I agree that does happen to some extent, .
Yes, yes, and yes.....plus, as a bonus..... said yahoo cover beaters will leave enough shotshell casings and real trash in those blinds to fill a wheelbarrow....or two. The blinds that require longer rock kicking sessions have larger piles of garbage.
 
#22 ·
Kernkilla said:
Whats there to work out. You've been in the rez line since thursday. Put that time and effort in. You get to the spot first. Lugged that pile of gear approximately 1.2 miles. Set up in the best spot in the pond and then here comes yahoo setting up 40 yards away and wont leave. Only working out should be him leaving.
What's to work out? How about calling a warden? If they are really 40 yards, then that is a safety issue and I know first hand that they will respond to that issue.

Or, like others have suggested, ruin their hunt and fire a shot every time a bird works in..... You can always fight fire with fire.

As for space blinds, don't bring that crap to Mendota, we don't want it. Sacramento, Delevan, and Colusa have been ruined by them.
 
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