Summary: Just what should you look for to determine areas that may hold ducks or geese? Below is a detailed list of situations you should look for before and through out the hunting season.
The importance of knowing the terrain in your area when excessive rainfall hits can lead you to the most productive waterfowl hunting you have ever experienced. Small hidden oasis's can appear over night. Your challenge is being able to identify in advance where these areas will occur after a heavy rain and why waterfowl will use those areas.
Excessive rainfall is one of the most important contributing factors to finding hidden waterfowl hotspots. Excessive rainfall contributes to rising water levels in the reservoirs and marshes that are hunted. It causes rivers, creeks, and streams to leave their banks and puts water into the flood plains. It leaves small ponds in agricultural fields in hard pan areas and it fills stock ponds and livestock dikes that may have once been dry but are our now filled with weeds and water.
As is the case with most of the key areas that hold hidden hotspots, springtime scouting is a necessity. Often the spring of the year reveals these hidden jewels because of spring runoff and heavier than normal amounts of precipitation and little or no ground cover. Taking one or two hours to travel the countryside after a heavy rain will allow you to locate and record potential fall hunting hotspots.
So, while other hunters are scratching their heads wondering where the birds have gone you now have a systematic approach for locating waterfowl in the strangest places.
Small changes in the overall water level of the reservoirs, marshes, or rivers in the areas that you hunt can produce some of the greatest hidden waterfowl hotspots known. The wonderful thing about these small changes is that almost no one realizes the impact a one-inch rise in water level can have once a reservoir, marsh, or river is at capacity. The key to understanding water levels is knowing when the area you are hunting has reached capacity and where does the water go once it exceeds capacity.
Once again, spring scouting can pay huge dividends in finding the areas where excess water goes once a hunting area is at capacity. In the spring vegetation is almost nonexistent. This allows you the ability to quickly and easily pinpoint and record the areas where excess water goes after the area has reached capacity.
Flood plains are areas generally adjacent to rivers, streams, or drainage ditches that flood when rising water spills over their banks. These areas are the first to flood and tend to be the last areas to dry up.
Once flooding has started to occur flood plains can offer some of the best waterfowl hunting of the season.
If the flood plain is an agriculture field ducks will flock to the area for the easy meal. Flood plains that include timber can provide some of the best green timber hunting regardless of what area of the country you live in.
Identifying flood plains is very easy and is again best done in the spring of the year when snow runoff or heavy rains cause rivers, streams, and ditches to come out of their banks. Scouting can be done simply by driving along the flooded area and noting where the water is escaping the river.
It is important to note the areas that have slow moving water or where pools have been created, as these areas are more favorable for ducks and geese. Also make note if any of these areas flood potential food plots such as grain fields, acorns, or smartweed and other small weed seed patches.
Drainage ditches are man made waterways that are created to let excess water, from agricultural fields, runoff into them or water from agricultural tile lines to run into them. Often overlooked as a waterfowl hunting hotspot, drainage ditches can be very productive under the right situations.
The first situation occurs when ducks or geese are using an area to feed that has a drainage ditch nearby. When ducks or geese have finished feeding they start looking for water. If the drainage ditch has ample water and is wide enough, you may be able to pull some of these thirsty ducks or geese into your spread with a minimal amount of decoys and some good calling.
The second situation occurs when the majority of the water in the area is frozen but there is still ample food for the ducks or the geese. Drainage ditches that have tile running into them or are fed by natural springs, will often stay open throughout the season as the water entering the ditch is usually 15 - 20 degrees above freezing. As ducks or geese leave or return from their roosting area to feed, they will be drawn to the open water that is available in these ditches.
Waterfowl today tend to stay in an area until their food source has been depleted or has been covered up by an excessive amount of snow.
Until that time ducks and geese will remain in the area even if most of the water has frozen. While most hunters are packing things in for the next season, waterfowl hunters who know where the open water is will score big.
Identifying areas that remain open after a freeze include areas within rivers, streams, and creeks that have small rapids or faster moving water. Many of these areas will exist around bends and shallow rocky areas that cause the water to move faster.
Other areas that remain open after a freeze include the area around tile line exists and areas that have or are feed by natural springs. These areas are especially deadly if they exist within the flight pattern of feeding ducks or geese.
As is the case with finding hidden hotspots, advanced scouting is a must. Fortunately, once you have located an area that remains open after the freeze, it usually will remain open in future years too.
Standing water in agricultural fields can produce some of the best waterfowl hunting imaginable. Standing water will occur in some grain fields after a heavy rain and may only be present for 3 or 4 days. At the same time only specific areas within these fields hold water. Most often agricultural producers refer to these areas that hold the water as "hard pans".
Hard pans are generally developed by the soil being compacted in wet areas within the field or they are developed in areas that machinery and equipment constantly travel on. The soil becomes compressed and does not have the capacity to properly drain. Because the drainage capacity of the soil is diminished these areas may hold water for an extended period of time, especially in wet conditions or during heavy rainfall.
Identifying agricultural hard pans is relatively easy to do. It is best done in the spring of the year before the crop is planted and after snow runoff or a heavy rain has occurred.
The three most important things to record when scouting for hard pans are: the location of the standing water in the field, the size of the hard pan area, and finally how long does the water remain once it stops raining or the snow runoff has ended.
Waterfowl and beavers go hand in hand. If you find an area where beavers are actively building a dam you will generally find ducks or geese. Beavers can produce mini wetlands that attract waterfowl in droves. In most cases, these mini wetlands are unseen by the vast majority of waterfowl hunters.
Beavers are most often found in streams, small rivers, and slow moving tributaries. They have the ability to dam an area up in a matter of days. These dams often cause water to back into agricultural fields, timber, or upland cover. Once the water starts to escape into these areas, waterfowl will begin to appear almost magically.
One of the best ways to find beaver activity is to talk with trappers and agricultural producers. Trappers can give you pinpoint locations of dams and beaver activity and often can tell you just how many ducks or geese are using the area.
Agricultural producers who have streams, creeks, or rivers flowing through their property, especially along grain fields, keep a close eye on potential beaver activity. Grain producers don't want any surprises when harvest time rolls around. Networking with trappers and farmers is your best chance to find these mini wetlands.
Stock ponds and livestock dikes are created by farmers and ranchers to catch runoff that will allow their livestock to get water in otherwise dry areas. These ponds and dike areas are generally small and shallow creating a perfect area for waterfowl.
Because these areas are generally created in lower lying areas that tend to hold more moisture they produce vegetation that like wetter conditions such as smartweed and foxtail. If it has been a drier than normal year these areas may produce a substantial crop these weeds. If conditions in the fall become wet these areas can fill with water and become attractive spots for waterfowl.
Stock ponds and livestock dikes can most often be found by watch the livestock that are using the area or by noticing small mounds or dikes that seems out of place with the surroundings. Spotting scopes and binoculars are the best ways to scout these areas. It is important that you ask permission to hunt these areas. Farmers and ranchers may be reluctant to let you hunt the area if livestock is present.
All of the preseason scouting and record keeping can pay huge dividends in the fall. Here's an example of how it worked for us.
Late in the spring a preseason scouting trip was taken on a local Wildlife Management Area that we hunted quite often in the fall. We were traveling down one of the channels that flooded the WMA when we noticed an area that was almost 100 yards long and 40 yards wide filled with water that was less than a foot deep.
We noticed that beavers had made three small cuts or ditches in the side of the channel that was allowing a flow of water into the area. When we return to the boat ramp we noted that the water level was at 4.4' and entered the information into our scouting records.
Two years later, very late in the duck hunting season we had a heavy rain, which caused the level of the WMA to rise from 4.2' to 4.4'.
The following day I loaded up the boat and headed back to the area that we had found two years earlier. To no surprise, the area was loaded with mallards, gadwall, widgeons, and Canadian geese. In less than 1 hour I had my limit of ducks and geese. Over the next four days, our group of 8 hunters shot our limit of greenheads and a number of gadwall, widgeon, pintails, and Canadian geese.
It is important to note that the WMA we were hunting was the most heavily hunted area in the state and during that 5-day period of time we never had another hunter anywhere in the area since no one else knew the area existed.