Waterfowl on land

[Bush-man]

To hunt ducks on land, what am I looking for on land that attracts the ducks to land on?

[huntnmachine]

Harvested grain fields or ponds

[hunter06]

Just what hunt machine said. haven’t seen it in Ontario, but I don’t spend too much time down south, but in Manitoba a really good field for geese and duck was a a friends millet field. Just a hop away from a lake, pond, and river. Great hunting, after it was cut, but not combined yet.

[Sprite]

Lots of great field duck hunting in Ontario in wheat, beans and corn.

Biggest piece of advice I can give anyone when it comes to waterfowl is spend way more time scouting than hunting -- that means time behind the steering wheel and binoculars. I'll bet my ratio is somewhere around 10x more scouting than hunting. Don't just set up in a likely field; find where the birds want to be. Ducks can be tricky to scout in fields, as sometimes they feed fast and furious at first and last light. This means being out before daylight or in the late evening looking for flights of ducks as the sky brightens/darkens.

Just this past weekend I had scouted and secured permission for a bean field full of geese, but was lazy and was only scouting later in the morning when the geese were flying. Sure enough the wood ducks stole the show at first light, and we shot 8 or 10. A welcome surprise, but had I known they were in there we'd have brought a Lucky Duck or two and would have shot the 3 man limit of ducks early to go along with the 3 man limit of geese later in the morning.

It can take new waterfowl hunters a long time to understand this concept as the want to just hunt is always there, but if you're not scouting you're not going to be consistently shooting birds. The folks that take this type of advice to heart do far better in their first few seasons.

Good luck!

-N.

[Bush-man]

Lots of great field duck hunting in Ontario in wheat, beans and corn.

Biggest piece of advice I can give anyone when it comes to waterfowl is spend way more time scouting than hunting -- that means time behind the steering wheel and binoculars. I'll bet my ratio is somewhere around 10x more scouting than hunting. Don't just set up in a likely field; find where the birds want to be. Ducks can be tricky to scout in fields, as sometimes they feed fast and furious at first and last light. This means being out before daylight or in the late evening looking for flights of ducks as the sky brightens/darkens.

Just this past weekend I had scouted and secured permission for a bean field full of geese, but was lazy and was only scouting later in the morning when the geese were flying. Sure enough the wood ducks stole the show at first light, and we shot 8 or 10. A welcome surprise, but had I known they were in there we'd have brought a Lucky Duck or two and would have shot the 3 man limit of ducks early to go along with the 3 man limit of geese later in the morning.

It can take new waterfowl hunters a long time to understand this concept as the want to just hunt is always there, but if you're not scouting you're not going to be consistently shooting birds. The folks that take this type of advice to heart do far better in their first few seasons.

Good luck!

-N.

I'm new to hunting, fair enough I have been putting alot of miles on the car scouting areas , what sucks in ottawa and even an hour away drive from ottawa is that there are way to many private land, from fields and forestes, and once you find public land 90 percent I have been noticing you have tongo through private to get to public, so that toughens the search and have access, there's few forests we alloud to hunt in the city so everybody goes there and hard to find birds because they to preasured, and yet even in them public forests there still private land in there !! Like it's hard to scout for spots and be lucky it's public, so people go to farm lands ask permission, they get an ok then abuse what good they got piss of the farmer now he doesn't allow hunters in because of irresponsible hunters, and the bunch of other land owners could say sure come hunt but then they end up saying, sorry lad I allready have people hunting my fields, so far I have knocked in 5 doors and those were answers I got, the only permission I got was in Deep River, lucky enough and much appreciated it, hunted once there it was amazing! But it's a long drive for every time I want to yo out, it would be nice to have spots closer by the city to go more often but it is what it is, for this year I'm putting away the gun and gear and call it a season. Maybe better luck next year.

[Bush-man]

Just what hunt machine said. haven’t seen it in Ontario, but I don’t spend too much time down south, but in Manitoba a really good field for geese and duck was a a friends millet field. Just a hop away from a lake, pond, and river. Great hunting, after it was cut, but not combined yet.

I have few buddies live in Mnaitoba and they talk to highly of hunting and fishing there.

[longpointer]

Totally agree with all of the above ! The corn is still up down here in Norfolk County but the beans are pretty well gone. My favourite fields are harvested corn with a wet area preferably a big puddle in it, seems that little bit of standing water acts like a magnet on ducks ! Problem I found that the birds hit it hard for a few days and clean it out then move on to some other field, but you will get 2 or 3 unbelievable shoots out it. The birds pour in and it's barely shooting time ! The low light level makes it hard to spot the drakes and Black ducks but what a sight to see 100 or 200 birds funneling down to your kill zone. Over the years you get to map out the fields/dates/weather conditions/crops so all those years of driving around scouting don't have to be repeated as much, you still have to but at least you've narrowed it down a lot.

[Bush-man]

Totally agree with all of the above ! The corn is still up down here in Norfolk County but the beans are pretty well gone. My favourite fields are harvested corn with a wet area preferably a big puddle in it, seems that little bit of standing water acts like a magnet on ducks ! Problem I found that the birds hit it hard for a few days and clean it out then move on to some other field, but you will get 2 or 3 unbelievable shoots out it. The birds pour in and it's barely shooting time ! The low light level makes it hard to spot the drakes and Black ducks but what a sight to see 100 or 200 birds funneling down to your kill zone. Over the years you get to map out the fields/dates/weather conditions/crops so all those years of driving around scouting don't have to be repeated as much, you still have to but at least you've narrowed it down a lot.

Yah I drive by alot of farm and see these massive flock of ducks and geese landing to water spots on farms I can just imagine being out there seeing that up close must be amazing

[hunter06]

I have few buddies live in Mnaitoba and they talk to highly of hunting and fishing there.

Pretty hard to beat. Will be there for deer after riffle in Ontario. Was out there this fall visiting friends. One quad ride through one of the fields provided over 50 deer sightings with 8 bucks that were in the 120-160 inch range. As far as waterfowl goes also hard to beat. Went out with my buddies scouting and one field had so many geese I couldn’t begin to guess the number. Something like 200 acres of geese. Also was surprised by a good population of ruffed grouse in my buddies bush. That was a little rant lol, love it out there.

[Bush-man]

Pretty hard to beat. Will be there for deer after riffle in Ontario. Was out there this fall visiting friends. One quad ride through one of the fields provided over 50 deer sightings with 8 bucks that were in the 120-160 inch range. As far as waterfowl goes also hard to beat. Went out with my buddies scouting and one field had so many geese I couldn’t begin to guess the number. Something like 200 acres of geese. Also was surprised by a good population of ruffed grouse in my buddies bush. That was a little rant lol, love it out there.

One day soon enough I'll be visiting my.budd at his cottage, hunting there sounds like a dream