Please welcome Travis Schneider from Texas.
He has been hunting since he was eight years old, first chasing deer with his father.
He went on his first duck hunt at the age of ten, and still remembers that hunt vividly as he was ruined for life after his encounter with waterfowl. He never wanted to hunt big game again and switched his focus to hunting birds, primarily waterfowl.
He is now 23 years old and hunts ducks almost every day of the season.
Please give a big welcome to Travis. He's got duck in his blood.
First Duck Memories
The first duck I killed was a drake wood duck several years ago.
I still remember the hunt as if it was yesterday and it was one of the key moments in my waterfowling career that I will never forget. I have the bird mounted in my room at home and every time I look at it I'm reminded of that day and all of the great hunts and friendships made through this sport along the way.
My first banded bird was two years ago, and it was a drake gadwall that I killed at a place we've been hunting for several years. Not only was it my first banded bird, but a banded gadwall is extremely rare. The bird was banded in Alberta a couple of years before.
Options
I'm fortunate enough to have properties stretching down a long area of the State that I have access to, and I also guide for Moody Ranch Outfitters outside of College Station, Texas. I primarily hunt private lands, but since I hunt almost every day of the season I hunt a bunch of public lands as well. I would say my percentage of private to public land shoots is about 80 percent to 20 percent, respectively.
Hunting Passions
I like hunting because I enjoy the outdoors and the camaraderie that I share each morning with my group of hunters in the blind. I love watching the world wake up every morning, hearing the sound of the wind ripping through the duck's wings as they approach the decoys, watching a good dog work, and poking fun at guys for shots they should have made. All of this and more are reasons that I love to hunt.
We hunt everything from flooded timber, big lakes, and sloughs to flooded fields, creeks, rivers, and ponds. To hunt all of these different venues you have to be able to adapt or you will never be successful. We use everything from big water spreads with as many decoys as we can combine, to small water hunts where we put out only a half dozen decoys.
Flooded timber and fields rank at the top of my list as far as favorite places to hunt. I love leaning up against a tree or hiding in a layout blind and watching the ducks fall into the decoys. If I had to pick one way to hunt for the rest of my life though, it would be in flooded green timber. There's nothing better in the world than hugging a tree, and watching the ducks drop vertically, trying not to hit any branches on their way down. This is in your face duck hunting, and the shots can be up close and personal.
Big Winds
A hunt I'll share with you was on the second to last day of the season last year. We were hunting outside of College Station, Texas and we had just had a big cold front sweep through the area the night before. We had some hard northwest winds ripping across our hole, and we all knew it was going to be a great shoot. I had an old football buddy with me, the landowner, and another friend that I have done a few duck hunts with. We had everything set up perfectly, and the ducks never knew we were there in our layout blinds. Our furthest shot that day was 30 yards, and every bird we killed came in perfectly to the decoys.
Another fun deal about this hunt was that we killed several different species of ducks which included mallard, pintail, gadwall, widgeon, shoveler, bluebill, ringneck, and teal. It was a great way to wrap up the season and I think we ended up being a few birds short of a full man limit, but it was still one of my most memorable hunts of the season. We had a great time calling in birds, watching them work, talking about past trips, and giving each other hell for missing a shot.
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