So I took the plunge and bought a bunch of Duck/Goose hunting stuff this weekend. I've only killed a couple ducks/gesse before, and since there is water all around me I figured I might as well try it.

Any advice on calling/set-ups or what to look for for a newbie?

It'll be dark when you set your decoys. The sun will eventually rise. Set up so that the sun rises behind you. It's tough to shoot birds when you're staring into the sun. Ideally you want the wind at your back too. Ducks turn into the wind to land.

Throw your decoy weights into the wind. Make sure you leave a place in the spread for the birds to land that is most advantageous to your shooting position.

Cover up. Imagine what you look like from overhead. Keep your face down and covered. It looks like a paper plate. Don't move.

When a flock comes in, let the ones in front land and start shooting at the ones in back. They will be the ones out of range first and by the time you are ready to shoot your second and third bird the ones in front will be easy targets as they will have to start from zero to get into the air.

Ducks will land in goose decoys. Geese won't land in duck decoys.

Set your divers upwind from your puddlers. They take farther to land with their skinny wings.

Keep recovery of the bird in mind when you shoot. A lot of times the possibility exists to be able to kill birds cleanly and have them fall where they will be unrecoverable. Only shoot at birds that will drop where you can get to them. This is mostly the case for guys who hunt without dogs or boats, but can be applicable in all situations.

Pattern your shotgun. Buy a couple of boxes of different stuff and pattern it. You'll be amazed at how some loads will look really great coming out of your gun, and others look like a claymore pattern. That same load might work great in your buddy's gun. You never know until you hit the patterning board. When I chased them hard, I used 3" inch steel No.1s mostly. It was a compromise for big northern ducks and geese. Steel 3s work great for ducks. Hevi-Shot is evil in a box, but pretty expensive. make sure your choke is screwed all the way down, well lubricated with grease, and not over tightened. Steel shot hammers the shit out of chokes.

Don't call. Practice for a couple of years in your truck against an instructional CD.

Robo ducks can work for you, but mostly they will end up working against you after the first week or two of the season.

The adhesive they use for windshield replacement is the best neoprene wader repair stuff in the world. Comes in a caulking tube.

Put your wallet and cell in a waterproof container. I use to use two zip lock bags one inside the other but there are better alternatives now.

Don't shoot early, don't shoot late. Hunt as if you are being watched by a guy with a badge and binoculars...because eventually you will be.

Keep this in mind, then remember it. I made the mistake of going by what someone else told me for what time shooting hours were once. Not sure of the rule in other states but IA is 1/2 hour before sunrise to sunset. Another guy showed up on the pond I was hunting, had a shooting hours chart. He said it was a sunrise chart and shooting hours were half an hour before the chart. Nope, the chart was actual shooting time, I was dumb and listened to him, and got caught. My own fault, and I was fined for shooting 8 minutes early.
Also, learn what the different ducks look like in the air, especially low-limit birds(in IA this means pintail, canvasback, scaup and woodies). These 4 are one or two bird lmits while the others are between four and six per bag-again, these are IA limits, your state is probably different.
Another piece of advice-DON'T MISTAKE A SWAN FOR A GOOSE! My cousin did that this year. $1650 fine and his gun was siezed until it's paid.
Most importantly, try to find a local duck hunter with waterfowl experience who will let you hunt with him a few times(ideally for the season when your schedules allow). Learn from that guy, if you find yourself in IA with a nonresident license you're more than welcome to look me up. For the first season it's easier to piggyback with someone who already knows what he's doing, and decide if you like that type of hunting before spending a lot of money on new stuff like decoys and calls.

Thanks for the info guys

I went out this morning with a buddy and his psycho lab, we saw quite a few ducks but didn't have anything come into our decoys. I had been watching videos and practicing my calling all week, didn't seem to do much. We had some huge rafts of ducks and geese out on the main lake that was keeping the birds from really being interested in coming into the backwater area we set up in.

I had fun, so thats all that counts

I'll keep on it!

Good to know, would be fun to cruise right through them with the boat.....too bad you can't go drive-by on them

I didn't say run into them helter skelter with the throttle wide open. Going for a boat ride with unloaded, cased guns to take a closer look is perfectly legal.

Shooting from a boat "under power" is just as illegal as shooting from a car in most states. As for the idea of using the boat to scare them up, I don't know. Casing the guns, travelling to where the ducks are, stopping the boat, uncasing and loading the guns, and shooting the ducks on the water(if they haven't flown yet) may or may not be legal.

Throw on some blaze orange during the boat ride and wave at the ducks a lot as you putter around the lake. Any game wardens watching will assume you're retarded, rather than up to no good

I tend to write off the rafting ducks, if you drive through them they will just get up swirl around and land again where there are no duck blinds. However sometimes you can exploit a unique situation. Usually it will be nasty weather with a straight wind, where i will position myself where the ducks are turning out of the going with wind direction. Then position my decoys to create just a slight distraction. Now the decoys will usually be out range, but i am only using them for a distreaction. When it goes right i will have little group of ducks moving with the wind towards me fast, but will be turning away before getting into range except for the 1 or 2 ducks that hesitate just enough to end up swinging wide making the turn. This is what i am looking for and plan to make only 1 good shot at the end of my range. Fun as shit when it works out.

I know what you're saying, but cut steel shot shells could easily ruin a tightly choked gun.

i have buck gardner's calling instructions on my home computer. i'll upload the MP3's to my host and send you a link. if i forget, send me a PM.

Well, the above didn't happen.