Field Hunting in North Texas

Wanted to hear some opinions and input on this. I’m looking to start hunting ducks in dry fields, however don’t really see or hear much about that in North Texas. Obviously corn, milo, or soybean are king when it comes to field ducks, and winter wheat is king in North Texas it seems. I’m not asking anyone to give up their spots or their secrets, more so just wanting to get a gauge of if anybody really hunts ducks on dry land in North Texas. Would love to have a conversation about it with anyone in the same position or willing to share some wisdom. Thanks y’all.

Never tried it personally, but there used to be a lot of peanut farms that brought a lot of birds to the area. Not sure how much peanut farming is still done here, but if you had access to some of those fields maybe

I never have or heard of any one that does

I used to have access to a wheat field NE of Greenville. I had some success with snow geese, and mallards. The land owner sold the ranch, good bye to the access. I live in Crandall, and used to see some snow geese in the Spring. Not anymore. I don't know where they went. I don't know anyone who does field hunting in the area.

This is just what I experienced / learned from hunting geese in the panhandle and north Texas:
I always hunted geese with an outfitter. They are out scouting almost everyday.
Occasionally they would find big feeds of lessers or snows that at various times of the day would get visited by ducks.
A peanut, soybean or corn field that is getting worked by lots of geese is very visible to ducks and pulls them in.
I hunted with the same outfitter most times so was able to persuade them to put out a dozen or two field ducks on one end of the goose spread.
Sometimes a spinner or two.
Usually; right at legal or just before, mallards, pins or widgeon would whip over the spread. They'd find the duck deeks and set wings.
If we were lucky, this might happen twice before the geese took all of our attention.
We never found dry feeding ducks in sufficient numbers or hitting the same area reliably enough to warrant setting up a dry field "duck only" spread.

I'd much rather find a good playa lake and set up layouts for ducks over water.
The ultimate would be an overflowing playa with sheet water out into the corn or peanuts. Need rain for that.

X2
Any ducks you find in dry fields in texas are bc of geese.

I have hunted literally thousands of days in dry fields in Texas for geese. I can count on my hands the number of times we shot ducks. I spent a couple of months in Canada Hunting waterfowl and we killed the snot out of ducks in dry fields. I don’t really understand what the difference is but for some reason I never saw many in the fields in Texas. Most we did shoot were widgeon.

We just hunted some winter wheat north of Wichita Falls and could not keep the wigeon out of the goose spread.

ttt

Only luck I have had on wheat fields is when they are flooded.... when that happens get ready cuz it can be INSANE.

Some days all we kill are ducks in goose spreads in wheat. Bizarre days They come errand don't mess around

I've mostly seen widgeon in the wheat fields in north Texas.

Exactly this for North Texas

I hunt just north of the Red River in Oklahoma and we have never hunted a dry field, the closest thing you get here for ducks is a low spot in the wheat that is flooded with sheet water

Where I'm crane hunting right now in young county there have been rare times with sheet water in the wheat field that 100s of widgets or teal have worked it. But again only maybe half a dozen perfect storm moments over 20 years time. Other than that I never really see ducks working dry fields in the north of dfw area. North of the red yes, but that is in areas with lots more agriculture than here. I have had success on pressured north Texas lake dry lake, dry mud flat, and dry lake pot holes when the main lake was getting hammered. It's often overlooked. As well as I have done in the lake mud holes I have always wanted to try the fake sheet plastic water with decoys on the upper dry lake areas or in a dry wetland cell just for kicks.