Sacramento or Yolo Bypass this Saturday (1/14/12)

[t-roy1127]

My son and I were both lucky and drew both Sacramento (resi #21) and Yolo Bypass (resi #7) for this Saturday. I looked online and I only found bird averages posted up to January 1st.

Has anyone hunted Yolo Bypass or Sacramento recently? When I looked at the Yolo stats most of the birds taken were spoonies and next being teal with very few geese. Just tying to figure which refuge would be best to hunt this Saturday.

[SHARKS]

Sac for sure.

[Bossbrott]

Sac

[bux-n-dux]

If you want geese Sac is the one. Also if Sac is slow you can zip to another refuge for the afternoon quicker than you can at Yolo.

[Bossbrott]

Fact remains: Pray for weather!

[t-roy1127]

I'm guessing I'll take your advice. Since I have never hunted Yolo I just wasn't sure.

[Bossbrott]

Sorry, I got all excited for a second, thinking it was actually MY decision where WE were gonna hunt! Then I woke up, realizing I dont pull resis. Now that was scary!

[51Shot]

Sac but don't shoot the specs...

[rvrrat]

Drove down road 68 this evening at about 430pm. I was surprised to see how many snow geese were using the area between blinds 2 and 13 and it looked like snows were using many other parts of the refuge as well. Northern edge may be a good afternoon snow shoot if you've got the dekes. Drove the SAC closed zone road. Hardly a duck flew until 540pm, then it was amazing the number of ducks in the air going to feed.

[rajnerb]

Had a # 17 at Yolo on Dec 3rd. Took the last choice for a blind that we wanted before
going free roam. Ended up being with the wind blowing that day we shot our limits by 1:00. I think we
had 4 spoonies with sprig, gads , and teal in the mix. It's all luck. I had a number 1 Sac a few weeks
ago thinking we would limit by 8:00 am. 8 birds all day. What a disapointment. Just was that day. So I can't tell you what would be the best bet. I do have a friend who has free-roamed Sac the last couple of weeks
and has shot his limits early. Good Luck!!!!! P.S. Yolo does not shoot a lot of geese.

[SHARKS]

So how did you do? What blind you take? Where did you end up going?

[sachunter]

This is T-roy1127. I am posting under sachunter because I'm using a different computer. A while ago I couldn't remember my password (still can't) so I created a new account. My other computer just auto fills it in under t-roy1127 so I never have to remember it.

I went to Sac yesterday over Yolo. I picked blind 8. I am not sure if that was a good decison or not. Unfortunately, I forgot my printed blind averages at home. It is a crapy system in my opinion to have the only blind averages 30' away from the check in window. By the time you walk back and forth to see what's available and fight through the people things keep changing. IMO they should also have one at the window. Anyway that's my little rant. I'm sure it would slow things down but I realize it's my fault for not having it a copy with me.

So blind 8 wasn't too bad yesterday. Lots of Gadwall and Pintail and Snow geese. There was a large raft of coots several hundred yards in front of us drawing the birds in but just not over us. I never had any birds decoy was all just pass shooting. I had swimmers,spinning wing and a jerk cord going and those birds were not interested. Even when I turned off the spinning wing they never looked. We ended up moving into the tulies about 60 yards from our blind but a little to late. I shot most of the birds from the tulies.

We ended up with 5 birds mainly Gadwall and no pintail. We should have had more but my son is young and struggling on hitting ducks and my dad just can't shoot like he used to. Heard lots of shooting all around the first hour then it slowed down. Saw a few snows fall around us but we didn't get any.

I still had fun it was a good day being out there with my son and dad. The bird count just doesn't reflect the opportunities.

[Bossbrott]

Thanks for the report. Prolly did better than Yolo did!

[steinysstooges]

You meant to say 30 yards from the blind since the rules state you need to be 100ft within the blind. We were there as well. Ended up with eight birds. Wish they had the wind I'm seeing today. : (

[sachunter]

steinysstooges,

I'm glad you said that. I thought it was 100 yards was the limit.

[rvrrat]

I lotto'd and took blind 20. Ended up with a mallard and gad, left at 1030. Wish I had my snow dekes with me, I may have stayed longer. Drove over to another refuge and bagged another mallard in the evening so not a bad day. Yes, weather would be nice and it's on it's way for Wednesday. Hope it's a good one!