Scouting Tips

Hello.... hello.... hello...

Sorry Jesse, been crazy busy with family stuff & entertaining for Thanksgiving so I haven't checked in much.

I've been hunting fields more the past few seasons so I guess when it comes to scouting for birds you're probably in a good position professionally since you do a good bit of traveling if I remember right? I don't know if there's a whole lot of methodology behind it, but I'm scouting just about every night I'm driving back home from work. Generally late afternoons the birds will start moving again after loafing around on the water for most of the mid day. I travel quite a bit as well, so I make it a point to take the backroads coming home, keeping my eyes on the road, skies, & fields for birds. I also scout in the mornings if my travels allow since birds are active then, heading out to the fields for their first meal of the day. When I see some birds in flight, and if they're not sky high, I'll try to take up pursuit and follow them to where they're going. If everything works just right, I'll be able to follow a flock to the field they're feeding in. Then I'll just sit and watch for a few minute to see what else is there / what else follows. If there's a farm house there I'll just drive in, knock on the door, introduce myself, and ask for permission. If there's not a house then I write down the road / nearest intersection and hit up the county auditor's website that night so I can return the next day once I know the landowner's name & address. You know the drill, same as you would for trying to gain access to a spot to bow hunt.

Scouting for spots on water can be tougher, depending on the size of the water. A small marsh or pond might be easier to glass from your truck, while on a big lake you might need to get out in the boat to cruise around a bit and find out where the spots are that the birds feel comfortable. Keep in mind that some of those smaller ponds & marshes could also be roosts, and while there are differing opinions on hunting a roost or not, if you do decide to hunt a roost pond you'll want to do so selectively. You can burn it out real quick and the birds will more on to a safer spot. I try not to hunt roost ponds unless it's my last resort, or the season is coming to a close soon.

Good luck!

A lot of my scouting for waterfowl is simply by happenstance. I drive around a lot for work, so I just keep track of fields and potholes that are holding birds as I become aware of them. Of course you won't be able to get permission to every property you find holding birds, though, so I also keep track of the surrounding properties as well. A big difference between waterfowl and deer is that waterfowl are obviously much more vocal and succeptable to calling. You don't always have to be on the "X." If you're in the general viscinity of birds, chances are you can get them in gun range with the right setup and calling.

For late season, corn is king... just like with deer. Waterfowl rely on corn to make it through the migration. Add some standing water to that corn, and you've got duck/goose kryptonite my friend. Natural vegetation like millet and smartweed are also vary favorable to waterfowl, but from what I've seen they'll always prefer corn. Water depth is something to keep in mind when scouting, too. Puddle ducks like mallards, blacks, gadwalls, etc don't feed in water that's very deep... These aren't divers, so the food has to be relatively close to the water's surface for it to be an attractive feeding location. Another thing to keep in mind is whether a spot is a feeding area, a loafing area, or a roosting area. Determining this will help you determine what time to hunt it. Ideally, you should try not to hunt a roosting area unless you're desparate, IMO... Reason being, if you start shooting up the roost, they're going to find somewhere else to hang out for the night and your fields closeby will quickly turn to shit.

Scouting for waterfowl is not as complicated as scouting for deer, IMO. Just try to be as observant as possible when you're driving around and knock on some doors. The good thing is, most landowners are much more likely to give you permission to shoot birds than to hunt deer.

Glad to hear you can buy some waterfowl gear Jesse! I will only echo and agree with what has already been said. We never shoot birds off the roost unless last resort or end of the season. If you can get permission for a field in between roost and feeding area, then do it instead. Do everything you can to keep the birds around. Are you going more for ducks or geese.....or both? I myself have a very strict decoy placement strategy each time I hunt. It changes for each location, and can change multiple times during a hunt. If the birds arent working to the spread, I will change it up. Sometimes it helps, other times it may not. Also, when calling ducks, I believe in the theory less is more. If the birds are working, shut up and let them work. With working birds (ducks), I will do soft quacks snd short feeding chuckles. With geese, we throw everything at them as they approach, getting faster with tempo, then cut it down to clucks and moans when they are committed. If your gonna hunt geese, get yourself a flag or 2. They work great at turning birds to you when they are a couple hundred yards out.

One more thing......if your looking for a good goose and duck call and don't want to break the bank, I have a Zink paralyzer goose call and Zink power hen open water duck call I will make you a hell of a deal on.

Corn fields along the muskinum down there.
Go all the way to Beverly if need be. Let me know what you find out about the new river laws.

Derek j said:

If your gonna hunt geese, get yourself a flag or 2. They work great at turning birds to you when they are a couple hundred yards out.

One more thing......if your looking for a good goose and duck call and don't want to break the bank, I have a Zink paralyzer goose call and Zink power hen open water duck call I will make you a hell of a deal on.

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I'll echo that as well. A flag is a very valuable asset when hunting geese in the fields.

The Zink polycarbonate calls are really solid calls for the money. I have a Power Clucker short-reed and a PH2 double reed as my polycarbonates. I have a Moneymaker acrylic as well and it kicks ass, but IMO the polys are the way to go for beginning calls. The polys made by Zink sound really great IMO. Echo makes some damn good duck calls as well. My next one will be that Echo Pure Meat single reed.

Ducks need and look for three things, food, water and shelter. In this part of the country they eat a variety of things like Ag crops (corn, soy, oats etc), mast crops like acorns, natural weed seeds in marshes. Any significant water has the potential to hold waterfowl such as rivers, creeks, ponds, lakes, marshes, gravel pits. Ducks take shelter (roost) in a number of different places. Some ducks like woodies prefer to hide amongst the maze of swamp cattails and other weeds. Other birds like to hide out in the open, rafted in the middle of big lakes, gravel pits etc. out of the reach of predators.

Here is how you can begin scouting for ducks. On Google Earth look for big bodies of water like gravel pits, lakes, marshes etc where birds can raft up over night. Get there before light and sip on a cup of coffee. When they begin to get up, follow them. Its really nice to have a freind in a different car incase the birds split up. Where they land, hopefully in the corn field of a freindly farmer, is what we call the "X". If you cant get permission on the "X" try to get a field under or very close to the flight line. This is known as running traffic.

Its also a very good idea to sit there until the birds leave and head to a mid day loafing area. Usually ducks and geese will roost in a different body of water than they loaf in. NEVER EVER EVER shoot a roost pond or lake. It is however, completely acceptable to hunt a loafing pond. Remember if you shoot them off the loafing pond, you can still find them in the roost and scout where they feed.....

If given the chance on a bright full moon night ducks and geese will feed as long as they can in corn fields. On those days its way better to hunt water in the morning. On dark and or cloudy nights where visibility is low hunting crop fields in the morning is more productive.

One other thing about scouting that not many people know. When looking for private property to hunt most of the images on satalite web sites like Google Earth are done in the fall when the leaves are off the trees. Its not uncommon to find images of corn fields with standing water in them. Corn fields with sheet water in them are golden. I've had numerous great hunts in Arkansas, none of them were as fun and exciting as good ole grain belt flooded corn field hunt.

Finding where birds roost is not rocket science. If you know anything at all about ducks and geese you can use google earth to find likely roost areas. Finding where they feed is not hard either if you have time to follow them. The hardest part is gaining permission to hunt them. In the past 10 years there has been an explosion of interest in waterfowling due to videos. When you do get lucky enough to hunt a place (In my experience down here in SW Ohio it's about 1 out of 10), ask if there is anyone else hunting. There's a 90% chance you will have others hunting the same property. Try and get their # (s) and talk with them and coordinate when eveyone hunts to avoid problems with other hunters who have permission.

Last year I found a field that was holding 500+ ducks and geese in late December. Followed them out and found the field. Talked with the owner and I was hunter #9 to stop and ask him to hunt. Nobody got to hunt that field and it basically ruined the area because the birds found a place where they did not get bothered and it took them weeks to feed it out. I was shocked that 8 different hunters stopped and ask to hunt that property. Unreal! And this area is by no means a waterfowl mecca.

Jesse said:

I've been keeping an eye on the birds as they are starting to stack in to our area. We do not have good numbers down here, so it just seems to be a crap shoot when it comes to finding a place. I swung down a back road today that goes around some backwater of the Ohio and along two old gravel pits. I saw 50+ geese, 20 mallards and 2 drake hooded mergansers sitting in different spots. I'm putting together a plan right now to get permission, but I bet I'll have some issues despite not many people waterfowling around these parts. It was great to see birds in a spot I can work with not having a boat or a dog...

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Good stuff, buddy! Hope you are successful getting permission to hunt 'em. All we need is some shitty weather and I'm sure you'll start seeing the numbers very soon.