Duck Habitat

**SChunter1991** · 01-14-2018, 06:33 PM

I may get roasted, toasted and trolled for posting this, but I’ve got a legitimate question for the duck habitat authorities on here. I’ve been deer hunting a piece of property that’s within 2 miles from the pee dee river for the last 10 years. It just so happens we have about a mile run of creek with several beaver ponds varying in size spans and spans of open water on them.

Over the last 10 years I have scouted and hunted these ponds and have had a lot of success with wood ducks and geese. However, I have never seen any other species of waterfowl than these two. I’ve killed and seen various specious of ducks on and around the pee dee river a few miles from theses ponds over the years. I just can’t wrap my head around why they don’t inhabit these ponds? What are your thoughts?

Ducks typically tend to decoy to their own kind. Would leaving Decoys in the pond entice waterfowl to check out the place and continue to frequent the area? What can I do during the off season(aside from baiting) to make the ponds more enticing to other species?

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**TXFowler** · 01-14-2018, 07:37 PM

Every specie has its own like and dislikes as do humans. Diver ducks generally like open water with the exception that ringers and buffleheads will sometime inhabit swamps and other small water bodies that you are describing. Puddle and dabbler ducks tend to like shallow water that is in a very open area like flooded fields or ponds in a field. FOOD SOURCE is #1 on why ducks are there or aren’t there and why and how they are using said hole. Have you checked the holes at various times of the day and year? Could be there’s not much food in there and they come in later in the day or night and use it as a resting or loafing area. Now there are exceptions to these general rules. I’ve heard of sea duck being killed thousand miles inland on small holes. But for the majority of you are hunting a beaver swamp for more than just wood ducks, you need to plant something to draw in other birds. The easiest imo in a beaver swamp is wild rice or Millet. Leaving decoys out while you’re not there won’t necessarily make different species want to be there. as for using decoys that match your target species, I will go ahead and shoot that one down. In Texas I’ve killed everything under the sun over nothing but mallard decoys and never once killed a mallard in my years there. To the day my grandpa quit hunting, over 2/3 or his decoys were 2 liter coke bottles that he had painted black and tied anchors to. We used to shoot limits over nothing but coke bottles! To this day it blows my mind.

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**SChunter1991** · 01-14-2018, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by TXFowler

Every specie has its own like and dislikes as do humans. Diver ducks generally like open water with the exception that ringers and buffleheads will sometime inhabit swamps and other small water bodies that you are describing. Puddle and dabbler ducks tend to like shallow water that is in a very open area like flooded fields or ponds in a field. FOOD SOURCE is #1 on why ducks are there or aren’t there and why and how they are using said hole. Have you checked the holes at various times of the day and year? Could be there’s not much food in there and they come in later in the day or night and use it as a resting or loafing area. Now there are exceptions to these general rules. I’ve heard of sea duck being killed thousand miles inland on small holes. But for the majority of you are hunting a beaver swamp for more than just wood ducks, you need to plant something to draw in other birds. The easiest imo in a beaver swamp is wild rice or Millet. Leaving decoys out while you’re not there won’t necessarily make different species want to be there. as for using decoys that match your target species, I will go ahead and shoot that one down. In Texas I’ve killed everything under the sun over nothing but mallard decoys and never once killed a mallard in my years there. To the day my grandpa quit hunting, over 2/3 or his decoys were 2 liter coke bottles that he had painted black and tied anchors to. We used to shoot limits over nothing but coke bottles! To this day it blows my mind.

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I appreciate your reply brother. The crazy thing about it is we seem to have a little of all different types of duck habitat. One of the beaver ponds has been there for a very long time so most of the trees are dead. There’s about 1 acre of open water the geese frequent. The far end of the property is a freshly flooded stand of cypress and acorn bearing oaks on the outskirts.

I’m with you on the decoy comment. I’ve killed snow geese over white trash bags and ducks over painted boat bumpers. An old boy at the club suggested to leave Decoys out is why I asked.

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