by Wade Bourne

It's a dilemma nearly every public-land waterfowler experiences. Ducks or geese are piling into a particular spot, and it's not where you are. Flock after flock circles and pitches in as you watch and wish.

You're close to the action, perhaps even close enough to hope you'll eventually get some shooting. But you don't, and you know deep inside that you won't until you set up exactly where the birds are going.

But often, setting up on the "X" is easier said than done. Waterfowl often feed and rest in areas that are wide open and devoid of cover. At other times, ducks in particular take refuge in flooded thickets that can be virtually inaccessible to boating or wading hunters.

So what's a hunter to do? Find a way to get to the birds no matter what. Here are the stories of four hunters who understand the importance of overcoming obstacles to set up on the X. By adopting their philosophy, you can enjoy more productive hunting this fall.

Don't Blow a Sure Thing

A few years back, Phil Sumner was scouting for an opening-day duck hunt on Tennessee's legendary Reelfoot Lake. Sumner was motoring his Go-Devil boat through a ditch in a swampy section of the lake when he saw a flight of mallards land some 200 yards back in heavy cover.

"I stopped and watched, and a few minutes later another flight hit the same spot," he recalls. "I didn't know of any holes in this area. It was just a jungle of buckbrush, purple loosestrife and cypress trees. I marked where the ducks were going in and then started trying to get to them."

Sumner snaked his boat through the cover to close some of the distance. Then he exited his boat and waded through the undergrowth until ducks started flushing.

"There were plenty of birds there for a shoot the next morning," he says. "They were down under the thick cover. I think they were there for seclusion and to feed on duckweed, which was covering the water. But there were no holes large enough to set a decoy spread. The vegetation was just too dense."

Well before dawn the next morning, Sumner and his hunting partners followed the route he had marked on his way out the previous afternoon. "We carried in only a dozen decoys, and we dropped one here, a couple there, wherever there was an open pocket large enough for the decoys to be seen from above," he says. "Then we hid behind a fallen cypress tree where the sun would rise to our backs."

The ducks came with the dawn. "We just crouched in the shadows, splashed a little water and called very sparingly," Sumner remembers. "Those mallards would almost land on top of us. We were exactly where they wanted to be, and all we had to do was be patient and let them get close.

"It all goes back to good scouting," he says. "I found where the ducks wanted to be and then figured out how to get back there in the dark. Then it was just a matter of hiding, being still and letting the ducks come. When you're where they want to be, you really don't have to do anything but shoot."

Sumner believes some hunters who find the X mess it up with too much calling or too many decoys. "You just want to blend into the spot, not change it," he says. "The ducks liked it before you got there, so there's no need to alter the equation. Just keep things simple, stay back in the shadows and let them come."