Waterfowl

Waterfowling 101 in the Heartland

I hunt the Missouri River as well as some large lakes, and I have some private ground where we duck hunt. To be honest, our duck hunting is the very best right at the end of the season. We haven’t had a good flight of early ducks here in Missouri for about the last 3 years. Warm weather has held back the migration for us here in the Midwest, just like it has for hunters

Small Game, Waterfowl

How to Set Up Your Decoy Spread and Get to Duck Hot Spots Before Other Hunters

Our decoy spreads are different in most of the holes we hunt. We know that ducks don’t like to fly over decoys or other ducks before they land. So, if we have a north wind in our face, we don’t put any ducks on the south side of where we’re hunting. If we have a north wind, we’ll concentrate most of our decoys on the north side of our duck hole. Later in the year,

Small Game, Waterfowl, How-To

What To Do When Hunters You Don’t Know Move Into the Spot You're Hunting

When hunting public lands, a common occurrence is to have other hunters come into the area where you're hunting and want to hunt there, because they can tell by all the shooting that they hear that you’ve found the ducks. I've found that the best approach to take when this happens is to kill the other hunters with kindness, and be extremely cordial to them.

Small Game, Waterfowl, Mossy Oak Bottomland, Mossy Oak

How to Know Places to Avoid and Where to Hunt on Public Lands

My friends often ask me, “Brooks, when I want to hunt on public waterfowl areas, what do I need to look for there?” I explain, “Search for balls of feathers and shotgun shells. If you see them on the place you think you want to hunt, don’t hunt there. More than likely, someone has shot ducks from that spot the day or two before you’ve arrived. But when you see a spot that has individual

Small Game, Waterfowl, How-To

How to Dodge Hunting Pressure on Public Land Waterfowling Areas

One of the reasons we spend more time duck hunting in Arkansas than we do duck hunting in Mississippi is that we’ve found fewer and fewer places in Mississippi where we can dodge hunting pressure. We've discovered that if we can walk into an area rather than going to it by boat, our opportunities are much greater for dodging hunter pressure than if we use a boat to reach the places we want to hunt.

Small Game, Waterfowl

Secrets of Public Land Waterfowling

Brooks Tinsley of West Point, Mississippi, hunts some of the most heavily hunted waterfowl areas in the nation, but he has been highly successful. We wanted to know what tactics he was using to take ducks in often overcrowded areas on public land.

Small Game, Waterfowl

Subscribe to Waterfowl