Field hunting ducks, suggestions needed.

[widuckkiller]

i hunt in wisconsin and never had much luck hunting ducks in the fields.. pretty much stuck to field for geese and water for ducks.. but now we are seeing a lot of ducks from the field.

Any suggestions for setting up duck decoys in your goose spread.. what will please the ducks and geese?

We usually set the goose blocks in some form of a horse shoe or something similar depending on wind to direct the birds right in front of us. Where to put the ducks is the question..... by themselves in a small flock? mixed in? in front of geese, behind? anything will help... buying some motion full body mallards today GHG...

[h20fowler]

I have found that the ducks work well into goose spreads. I tend to put my duck decoys on the upwind side of my spread. Usually off to one side. (the shorter side) I start with them mixed in and then work them out separate, creating 2 landing zones. 1 being the goose kill hole, and the second being the duck kill zone.

From what I can tell ducks are more aggressive feeders then geese and tend to move through a field faster. Also, geese do not like to fly over ducks when landing.

Another tip for you. Save your duck blocks that won't float for whatever reason, and cut the keel off. Or, but a dozen blocks and cut the keels off. This is a much cheaper alternative to the full bodies, and they mix in great. I run 3 dozen full bodies and a 5 dozen blocks that have the keels cut off.

[widuckkiller]

thanks for the tips! i do have some older magnum duck decoy shells but thay are almost the size of a large goose shell.. do you think that will flair the ducks or geese? The geese we're hunting get a lot of pressure so we need to be very convincing. so i dont know if the abnormally large decoys will hurt the spread. all of our goose decoys are flocked.

Thanks again for your suggestions..

[Killer Miller]

I normally run a U-pattern spread like h2ofowler also. I just make my normal goose spread and then put the ducks on the upwind side of the curved part of the U.

Also, if you remember when spinning wing decoys came out 5 or 6 years ago, they were like a magnet. Dont get me wrong, they are still effective. But I do know that spinning wing decoys in fields, for whatever reason, WORK GREAT! I've never seen anything like it. I was hunting a cornfield for ducks and geese last year in december in Illinois with my dad and we had about 100 mallards wanting to land. My flappy was going the whole time, when some started to land we let them have it. We dumped 4 with our 6 shots. THere were so many, it was hard to pick single birds out. So, the best suggestion I can give you is put a spinner out for sure.

Also, in my opinion, you dont need alot of duck decoys in fields , if any. They come to geese just fine, especially if youre where they wanna be.

[h20fowler]

So far I agree. One thing to watch with spinners are the geese. In my experience geese do not finish well with the spinners. So if you are using them keep them ona remote or close to you so you can kill it when geese are approaching.

[Killer Miller]

Got that factor covered h2o. I have a lucky duck with a remote. It works great. When the geese start to come, I just clip that baby off. I have the remote on my lanyard so its easy to get to.

[wooziegoose]

i agree totally. geese hate robos. we usually take them down completly when the geese start flying. we also cut the keels off floaters. we bought six or seven dozen of the cheapest decoys out there and cut the keels off. the good thing about it is that it only takes a couple of minutes to set those out. just dump the bag on the ground and sit em up straight. we usually put the ducks right in front of us with a few geese mixed in. then spread the rest of the geese out like a u or j. we put the robos only about a foot of the ground and right next to the blind so we can shut them off if need be.

[Max4hdmatt]

we set up a secret pattern. cant tell u what it is cuz its super deadly. but when we do set out duck decoys we set them about 10 yards away from the goose decoys usually to the right or left of the spread which gives u shots but also keeps them close. worked well on Sat for our youth hunt.

Thanks Matt