Almost every state has its prime waterfowling area. Because these areas attract the largest concentrations of ducks, they also attract the largest concentrations of hunters. But for those of us who want to hunt unpressured birds on a peaceful morning, this is exactly the situation we are trying to avoid. My advice is to go in the other direction.
My home state, Minnesota, provides a prime example. An hour’s drive to the east of my home is one of Minnesota’s most attractive waterfowl staging areas, the sprawling backwaters and sloughs of the Mississippi River. Virtually every duck hunter goes to “the river,” as it is called locally. Consequently, the best spots are crowded on weekdays, and there are conventions on weekends.
The country to the north, south and west of my home is gently rolling farmland. It does not look ducky, but creeks meander through the corn, soybeans and alfalfa, and creeks near these food crops mean ducks. Of course, it takes some time to locate the streams and obtain permission to hunt. Most hunters are not willing to take the time or invest the energy in something that does not look worthwhile to them. That’s OK by me. During 30 years of tromping creek banks, I’ve run into only a half-dozen other hunters. By contrast, I have spent mornings on popular marshes where I have had that many hunters within range of my blind.
Sometimes, I think that we duck hunters are cursed with tunnel vision. If a body of water is not stagnant, covered with fine green scum, surrounded by cattails and supported by three feet of stinking mud, we write it off. Small farm-country streams are ignored not only in my state but in every state in which I have hunted. Many of the not-so-little rivers remain untapped as well, simply because hunters are not accustomed to trying for ducks on moving water.
Don’t get me wrong. You are not going to find mallards on Class 1 white water, but most of our streams and rivers do not fit that description. The majority of our streams have slack spots, pools, eddies, oxbows and runoff sloughs. Even many of the trout streams I fish harbor good numbers of ducks in fall. Mostly, it’s a matter of expanding our horizons and looking beyond our preconceived notions of where a duck should be found.
Small streams, drainage ditches and irrigation canals can be easily hunted by the solo hunter. A retriever that doesn’t mind walking at heel makes the walk a bird-boot rather than a hipboot affair. The only drawback to jump-shooting streams and other small waterways solo is the unproductive walk back to the parked vehicle.
A partner helps cut down the unproductive miles. While you walk a stretch of creek, your partner drives downstream a mile, parks the vehicle and walks the next section. When you reach the vehicle, you drive around and pick up your partner. After a few sessions on the same stretch of water, you will learn which stretches consistently attract ducks.
As a general rule, creeks bordered by timber or brush will outproduce those banked by croplands. Pay special attention to each bend in the stream. The current is weak on the insides of bends, and that’s where you will most often find the ducks. Fallen trees sprawled in the stream break the current; mallards love the quiet pools created by downed timber, and woodies perch and preen in the low branches.
Larger streams are best floated in canoes or a shallow-draft boat. Four hunters, one vehicle and two canoes make the ideal combination. The hopscotch method used when hunting on foot with a partner is also employed here, except that the distance between put-in and pickup points can be lengthened.
Waterfowlers tend to lock onto one favorite method and shun other methods that could be much more productive on certain days. Shooting over duck decoys is the most common method of hunting ducks, so we will use that as an example.
A popular public marsh that I frequently hunt is heavily hunted during the early weeks of the season. Virtually every hunter puts out two or, less commonly, three dozen decoys. By the second week of the season, the local ducks have been well educated, and before the birds from the north move down, the local survivors actually avoid decoys. Yet, most hunters continue to deploy the same spread.
Surviving ducks actually avoid decoys and calling. I’ve concentrated on this by hunting without decoys. On one lake I hunt, a point juts out from the western side. The ducks are used to flying over the long point, but during the decoy-shy period they avoid it like the plague if there are decoys bobbing off the last bit of cover. I often put up the blinds on my little boat and hide it in that finger of cover, and thus enjoy excellent pass shooting without decoys.
At other times, I enjoy good shooting by using one to three decoys in tiny, secluded pockets of cover. During the decoy-shy period, the ducks know all of the favored hunting areas and avoid them. Instead, they look for small hidden pools and ponds in thick cover where they will not be disturbed. Once I see a duck or two drop into that kind of place, I pole my way to it, drop a block or two into the open water and wait. More than one or two decoys would look out of place in these secluded areas; a couple of blocks invite company.
Much the same can be said about calling when ducks are scarce. Ducks that have been around awhile get highballed every time they take wing and thus ignore the pleading cries of duck hunters. Just a simple quack or two draws sufficient attention to these tiny “spreads” in out-of-the-way places.
Of course, there are still places where ducks rarely see decoys or hear calling. In that kind of place, the reverse of the above is true. A recent trip to North Dakota demonstrated what I mean.
After an exciting morning of goose hunting, our host, a rancher and lifelong resident of the state, invited us to hunt a slough out in his pasture. We quickly emptied our pockets of No. 2 shells and replaced the goose loads with No. 4s and No. 5s. My partner grabbed a couple of bags of decoys from our trailer, threw them into the bed of the rancher’s pickup truck, and we were off.
As we bounced across the pasture, our friend told us to position ourselves around the slough as inconspicuously as possible. When we were in position, he would drive down to the northern end of the hourglass-shaped 10-acre slough and flush the ducks toward us.
“By the way,” our host inquired, “what have you got in them sacks?”
“Decoys,” I answered.
“Hell, boy, you don’t need no decoys to shoot a few ducks,” the rancher said with a chuckle.
Reluctantly, I left the decoys in the truck and slid down the slope toward the water. I used the concealment provided by a fenceline to reach the cattail edge undetected. On the other side of the black water, my partners wriggled into position.
A few minutes later, the pickup’s horn sounded, and 50 or so ducks of various species sprang from the cattail fringes of the slough. A pair of mallards winged over my hide, and I dropped the drake with the second shot. I could hear my partners shooting, and then it was over.
The old blue pickup came bouncing over the ridge and pulled to a halt several yards away. “C’mon,” my rancher friend hollered, “if we hustle, we can jump another pothole before I have to start the chores.”
“Go ahead and do your chores,” I said. “We’ll stay here and hunt until sunset.”
“Here?” the rancher said with disbelief. “There ain’t no ducks here, boy, I just scared ’em all up.”
“They’ll be back,” I countered as I swung the decoys out of the back of the pickup.
Shaking his head and mumbling something about a hardheaded city slicker, the rancher jammed the truck into gear and ground his way up the slope. By the time I had the decoys positioned, my friends had arrived, and we settled into the edge of the cattails to wait.
We didn’t wait for long. The ducks returned in twos and threes. Mallards pitched into the blocks without so much as one cautious circle. Pintails, normally among the most wary of waterfowl, dropped from nosebleed heights on cupped wings, long necks craning, dirty feet extended. Widgeon, gadwalls, teal and spoonbills skidded in among the blocks, sat stiff-necked for long moments and then hurriedly vaulted into the air or simply swam away. We shot only bull pintails and greenheads. I doubt that any of them had ever seen a decoy.
Many species of waterfowl often feed in harvested grainfields, particularly cornfields. Although widgeon, pintails, woodies, gadwalls and teal will all dine on grain when it is available, none are so addicted to the golden kernels as the waterfowling favorite, the mallard. There are two common ways in which some hunters cash in on this frequently overlooked opportunity.
One is to follow the flock from the resting area until it lands in a field and then attempt to sneak within range of the feeding flock. The other is to position yourself beneath what you hope is the flight lane. Neither method works well, and both let the flock know that the field is no longer safe.
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My father first introduced me to a better method in the Iowa cornfields three decades ago. Follow the flocks, watch them set down in a field and make sure they feed unmolested for 15 minutes. Then, get permission to hunt the field. Next morning, get into position before first light. The ducks will land and feed into the wind. Position yourself so that the flock will land downwind of your hide and feed toward you.
Avoid the temptation to conceal yourself in a fenceline, rock pile, among discarded machinery, in a ditch or in other available cover. Mallards avoid landing near such obvious ambush sites. It is much more effective to simply lie on your back in a machine-trampled row, pull some husks and stalks over your outstretched form and remain rock still while the flock circles. In a field that has been plowed or plowed and disced, it’s easy to make a small trench in which to lie. Hunters who do a lot of field hunting often use a six-foot length of netting into which they have woven cornstalks at haphazard angles as a cover-up.
Ducks won’t hang around long once snow buries their chow, but a few inches is nothing to a hungry mallard. Some of my most memorable moments in the field have come when mallards have greedily surged into fields to fill up during a snowstorm. White coveralls or an old white sheet draped over the shoulders is all you need for camouflage.
My father spent lots of time flat on his back in Midwestern cornfields while waiting patiently for mallards. He often experimented with decoys at such times, and finally concluded that the extra baggage wasn’t worth the hassle. The problem, I suspect, was that the decoys he used were the same floaters we used on the marsh. We simply scattered them in the cornrows. They resembled real ducks, but not ducks in a cornfield. Mallards in corn are in constant motion. The ducks waddle down the rows, hop over stalks, leapfrog over one another and make short flights as each duck attempts to get the most and the best. Our decoys simply sat there.
For the last few seasons, I have been using Windsock decoys, manufactured by the Northwind Decoy Company. They are made of Tyvek, a lightweight, nearly indestructible material, and it takes only a slight breeze to make the decoys swagger and sway. I can easily carry a couple dozen into the field and set them up in about 10 minutes. To a flying flock, I suspect they resemble feeding birds.
When I am hunting small fields (40 to 80 acres), the decoys are not necessary. Any position near the upwind end of the field is going to put you within range if you are patient, but on large fields, which are so common nowadays, the Windsock decoys can make the difference between a flock in your lap and one landing a half-mile away.
Sure, it’s nice to fill a limit with fat greenheads or bull pintails, but I learned a long time ago that you can’t shoot what isn’t there. Some hunters insist on being specialists, and they proclaim that the mallard or the pintail or whatever is the greatest. “The only duck worth hunting is a ______,” is the common cry of this group. These hunters miss out on a lot of good hunting.
To a lesser degree, many of us specialize without knowing it. Here in the Midwest, the mallard is king, and almost everybody sets up with mallards in mind, even though they may not realize it. This is fine if there are some mallards around, but often there are none. Instead, there may be a flight of widgeon, teal, pintails or divers. You can kill a few of these birds over mallard rigs, but to really reap the rewards, try setting up where these ducks want to be, and include a few look-alike decoys of the species in your spread.
Widgeon and pintails often ignore spreads that contain nothing but mallard decoys. Mix in just a couple of each species, and business will pick up.
Teal often decoy well to mallard dekes, but the location of the set is frequently not attractive to teal. Teal like channels and chutes, little bays and guts. When teal are in, throw a dozen decoys into that kind of water and then look out. Teal like to buzz decoys at breakneck speed. They often give the impression they intend to land, but don’t do it. You have to shoot quickly.
Divers can be hunted over mallard decoys, but with limited success. To escalate your kill, invest in a half-dozen diver decoys and use them as a string that leads into your spread of mallard blocks. Bluebills are not overly smart, and by the time they recognize their effort, it’s usually too late.
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