Normally I spend my entire fall chasing waterfowl. This year much of my time has been spent on other trips. Made it home for a few days over the New Year and found some mallards.

Looks like it was worthwhile, to say the least....nice.

Nice piles of greenheads....Congratulations !!!

Looks great! Finally got out myself last week and shot 5 greenheads and a few wiegons.

quote:

Originally posted by collector:
Nice piles of greenheads....Congratulations !!!

+1

Nice Green heads , Hate to go on a hunt that I could mainly shoot green heads, I am more of a collector I found an outfitter that last year they shot 21 diffrent kind of ducks in the new england area.

My, what a bad time you boys were having, huh? Not so much as an inkling of a smile across the board... Nice pile of meaters you boys shot, anyway.

Blaser, I hear you. I love any waterfowling, but I'd not go out of my way to travel anywhere to hunt greenheads. And yeah, a few seasons ago I poked 23 species here. Variety is, well, you know.

Nice hunt! Kamo is right, a smile makes a better picture for a shot like those.

What do you mean no variety? There is a widgeon and a delicious goose in the last picture. On the second day my buddy shot an immature drake goldeneye but we burried him behind the green.

I never smile because it makes me look like an even bigger tool.

That was probably my last waterfowling of the year so it was a good way to end it.

quote:

Originally posted by GrayDuck:

I never smile because it makes me look like an even bigger tool.

I do you some amateur psychiatric work on the side, and it's clear to me there is an underlying self-esteem issue. As a fellow AR member, I offer the following treatment, gratis: first, spend the dough to get some quality dental work done. Second, go on at least 50 waterfowl hunts next season, and voila, a smile is born. I guarantee results.

KG

P.S. I offer free consultations, and will consider accepting payment in ammo and decoys.

I came across this article a few weeks ago in that liberal rag called the NYT.....found it apropos as I had thought about another duck hunter bud who NEVER smiles in pics and has a less than stellar marital career.

Moral of the story: Wanna stay married? Say CHEESE before the snap!


Predictive Smiles

By JEFF STRYKER
Published: December 13, 2009
DRAWING: Predictive Smiles (DRAWING BY LAUREN NASSEF)


Say cheese and stay married? Yes, according to Matthew Hertenstein, a psychology professor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. He and three colleagues recruited more than 600 people for a review of their college yearbook photos. The researchers rated the yearbook smiles by coding muscle movements around the mouth and the eyes.

The researchers found a surprising correlation: the less people smiled, the more likely they were to later divorce. The effect was statistically significant, though not huge. But when Hertenstein compared the top 10 percent of brightest smilers with the bottom 10 percent of weakest smilers, the ''lowest were five times more likely to be divorced than the top.''


The researchers also recruited 51 people to submit photos of their choosing. The relationship between smiling and staying married held even for the photographs this group submitted -- posed and candid shots from when the subjects were, on average, 10 years old. ''I'm more confident in the smiling effect because it held even with a) childhood and b) candid photos,'' Hertenstein says.

Studying smiles in photos is only the latest in what has come to be called ''thin slice'' research, popularized in the book ''Blink,'' a couple of best sellers ago from Malcolm Gladwell. For example, from very short video clips, research volunteers have determined with surprising accuracy the personality, socioeconomic status and sexual orientation of those on camera. A still photograph is merely an extremely wafer-thin slice.

The why of the smiling effect remains elusive. Hertenstein acknowledges potentially ''dozens'' of possible explanations, going with perhaps the most straightforward and benign. He says his ''gut inclination is that people who smile on average in their photos have a positive disposition that serves them well in life and relationships.''

He cautions that his study is ''not destiny.'' Readers who frowned in their yearbook photos are not putting off the inevitable if they fail to rush to court to file for divorce. ''There are plenty of people who defy the odds,'' offers the professor, only slightly reassuringly.

Married ten years; I guess I am defying the odds.

Nice! Congrats