Tips to Maximize your Duck Season

Tips to Maximize your Duck Season

By Randy McPherren

Probably more important than the type of decoy set up you create is finding the right spot to hunt. Where are the best places to go in your area? How do you locate the spot in your area? Like Iowa, most states have public marshes, wildlife management areas, and waterfowl refugees that are managed to attract waterfowl. These areas can be county, state or federal property. Always check the local and state regulations before hunting or entering the areas. For example, Iowa’s refugees do not allow trespassing on the areas starting September 15th through the duck season. Those refuges are clearly marked with yellow refuge signs.

Use Available Resources
Use of the internet can be a handy method to locate hunting areas, both public and private. Like Iowa, each state provides an online interactive map of all of the waterfowl marshes and public hunting areas. They are listed or marked in each county for your convenience. Also, don’t forget privately owned wetlands. You can also use your Iowa Sportsman Atlas to identify potential hunting areas in Iowa. Google Earth and other satellite image programs, like Onx Maps, can be very helpful for locating opportunities. Privately owned WRP (Wetland Reserve Program) areas can be a great source for waterfowl hunting opportunities. WRP areas are created by the NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service), a federal agency. WRP areas are federally funded, but are owned privately. To get on these areas, a person should start early in the summer by contacting the landowner to get permission to hunt. Also,when the migrations begin in the fall, a tool that I have used is Ducks Unlimited’s DU Migration Map. it provides reports from waterfall hunting state by state and helps inform you to how the migration is moving.

Create Prime Duck Habitat
Managing marshes to attract ducks and geese can be labor intensive. Both state and private marshes are managed with specific land goals. The first objective is to create a food source that will attract ducks. The least expensive method is generally to manipulate the water levels in the marsh to promote various volunteer weeds or vegetation to grow, such as smartweed, wild millet, and other seeded vegetation. A great stand of smartweed provides seed heads that ducks cannot resist. To develop these ideal conditions in a marsh, a waterfowl manager will generally drain the water off the marsh in early April. This will create mud flats and various marsh vegetation and duck feed will voluntarily grow. In September the goal will be to artificially flood water over the marsh vegetation or hope for enough rain to flood the marshes. There are several methods to flood the marsh. You can hope for rainfall, arrange for a nearby river to flood the marsh, or back the water through the stop-log structures from a nearby river, or drain from a pool above the marsh. As you can see, creating wonderful duck habitat requires time and effort to be successful.

Some of the best sources for ducks are artificially created by wildlife departments or private managers. Japanese millet, buckwheat, corn, or grain sorghum provide great hunting when flooded with water. When you are lucky enough to find some of these spots, it can produce lots of attention action. An example of this is on the upper reaches of Lake Red Rock. Local wildlife technicians will aerially seed Japanese millet on the mud flats in the early summer when the lake levels drop. Year after year, this can produce super duck opportunities for those willing to scout out the feeding holes in the fall.

Consult Field Experts
Another great source for waterfowl hotspots are game warden workers, wildlife biologists, wildlife technicians, and state waterfowl biologists. These folks are all experts of all the areas in their districts. Don’t hesitate to call them and pick their brains on the best areas to hunt. They are paid by your license fees to know that information and their phone numbers are available to the public. Remember, the state public hunting areas are all funded by your hunting licenses, habitat stamps and state and federal duck stamps. So, in other words your license fees “pay the way” for good hunting! The state regulations are available easily either in a printed format or on the internet from each state. regulations can vary some from state to state, so be familiar if you travel to another state

Iowa Waterfowl Destinations
A few of the top public areas that I prefer to use are: Army Corps of Engineer areas, reservoirs, major available rivers, city or municipal lakes, and state managed public waterfowl marshes. The majority of the Army Corps of Engineer reservoirs have specific managed waterfowl areas. Many are cooperatively managed by the federal and state government. in the past 58 years, I have enjoyed the majority of my duck and goose hunts on public areas. Some of my most memorable hunts have been on Army Corps of Engineer reservoirs in Iowa such as Lake Red Rock, Rathbun Lake, and Saylorville Lake reservoirs.

Pre-season Scouting
Some of the best areas you will find, may be by walking into hard-to-reach areas on foot. These are generally found as a result of successful scouting trips and watching the ducks pile into their favorite holes. how many decoys will you need? If I am walking into a hard-to-reach area, I usually bring one to two dozen decoys. if it is a distant hike into the hole, I like to backpack a dozen or so quote feather lights quote by Cherokee sports. these are very lightweight inflatable decoys that seem to really swim in the water with very little wind on large water or legs more decoys and larger decoys may be necessary to be attractive so it is the night before you’re heading into your favorite duck spot what do you do? I like to know the weather forecast and the one direction and whether it will be cloudy or not. as you know, ducks like to land into the wind I will be planning to set up with the wind at my back.

Pass It On
Once you have decided your top places to go hunting, the next step is scouting with your feet on the ground. I usually go at first light or the last hour of daylight. Be sure to have your binoculars and watch where the ducks prefer to go. Your scouting can be as much fun as the hunt. Don’t forget to take a youngster along. It can be very educational for him or her to learn to identify ducks in the air. Remember to take a youngster out for the youth waterfowl hunting days, which starts one weekend before the regular duck season for two days. Residents 15 years or younger may hunt this weekend while being accompanied by an adult 18 years or older. Always check your state regulations as the seasons may vary.

Set Up for Success
If you do not have a good blind spot for the winds hitting you in the back, then crossing winds will suffice. Many times, I may be wading into a marsh using existing vegetation for cover, such as smartweed, cattails or other marsh grasses. There are many portable blinds available that you can camouflage with surrounding vegetation and really disappear in the background. Other methods for camouflage are bent blinds, cutting willows, or cutting other surrounding weeds for cover. Using a face mask can help reduce ducks wanting to flare from a shining face. A simple decoy setup pattern of two separate decoy spreads with an open landing zone in front of your setup or blind will work well. I use an Avery Marsh seat most of the time. it gives some comfort while we’re waiting and allows me to stay low, sitting at the waterline.

It’s also imperative that you are adaptable. If the ducks want to land in a different spot, be flexible and readjust. if the ducks appear to be flaring at something you may need to add camouflage or change your blind position. sometimes, shifting or changing the decoy spread may affect how the ducks want to land.

Additionally, one or two spinning wings may be very attractive to your setup. Generally, place them near your landing zone as the ducks may try to land near them. As I mentioned earlier, don’t forget to refresh your knowledge on the state waterfowl regulations. Most states’ legal shooting hours for ducks are half an hour before sunrise to sunset. However, for Iowa’s early September teal season the legal shooting hours are sunrise to sunset. This change was made for identification purposes since teal only are allowed in this special season. Most of you are aware that only non-toxic shot can be used or possessed for hunting ducks and geese. Remember that your shotgun needs to be plugged, so it’s incapable of holding more than three shells.

Do your scouting and get ready for the season. Some of the best waterfowl movement occurs during the first half hour before sunrise. In other words, set up your decoys early and get in your blind position for the best action of the day. Good luck!