How Time Of The Year Influences Waterfowl

Based upon our personal experience, the time of the year has the greatest impact on the following four areas: how vocal waterfowl are and how much they communicate with each other, flock size as they travel throughout the day, the size of the groups that they rest or feed with and finally, the locations they prefer. Your calling, decoy spread size and placement, and your location should change throughout the year in order to achieve year long success.

An Example Of The Influence

The earlier your season starts, the greater the impact the time of the year will have on your success. Our home state has an early September duck and goose season. At this time of the year most of the waterfowl in the area are locals with the exception of the teal. For the most part, the birds have remained in smaller family groups and are not extremely vocal. When hunting during this time of the year, we typically limit the size of our decoy spreads and we will set up the decoys in small family groups. Our decoy spread for duck hunting consists of a lot of hens and darker colored decoys to match the local plumage. The majority of our calling for ducks consists of feed chuckles, quacks and whistles, and short contented greeting calls. For geese we use clucks, moans, murmurs, and short greeting calls. We base our hunting locations around feeding areas.

How To Take Advantage Of The Influence

Use the time of the year to you advantage by adapting your calling, decoy spread, size and placement and your location to the time of the year. You can do this by carefully observing and listening to waterfowl in your area as the season progresses.

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