I know the energy is currently directed towards dove and teal but I’m getting excited for some colder weather. Will be heading north this year for a ten day stretch in December. Will be starting in the Great Bend area but staying very mobile. I’m curious if anyone has any advice as far as scouting goes.

I know the birds up there have more of a morning/afternoon water/feed pattern that we don’t get as dramatically in most places down here. How does this affect your scouting? Not wanting to see the X in an afternoon only to find out the next morning that they don’t arrive till the PM.

I’ll be taking a kayak up there with me. For some of the bigger refuges (such as CB) is it better to scout from the truck with the binos and cover more ground or get deeper into the mess but move a lot slower. Correct me if I’m wrong but I assume there are people constantly moving around so an afternoon paddle won’t ruffle too many feathers? I really don’t want to be “that guy” up there giving Texas a bad name haha.

I wouldn't make it Cheyenne Bottoms your starting point unless your trip coincides with the second opener for that zone. Cheyenne has tendency to freeze quickly and with this years water conditions that freezing will probably occur even faster and they will lose their birds due to ice. Also has a ton of pressure and large refuge area which makes the birds very very tough to hunt. We typically plan to spend 1-2 days scouting before finding a good shoot and we have hunted all over Kansas for years and know where ramps are, where refuge boundaries are, etc. so we can move rather quickly. We typically start at the refuge for a given area to determine how many birds are in a given area versus how many there normally are in other years. We also try to figure out the flight line of the birds to see if they will be exposing themselves to us along hunt able property when coming off the refuge. Tons of different options for finding them depending on the weather but I highly suggest a good pair of binoculars and the right attitude heading into it. There have been times I have gotten there and found birds I have hunted for four or five days straight and there have been times we spent three days in the car trying to find a single quality hunt. It is about the adventure.

Jamestown WMA (near Concordia) and Perry Lake WMA (near Valley Falls) have provided successful hunts for me in the past...both have websites that track waterfowl populations and with a yak, you should be able to experience some great duck action.

Good information. Thank y’all. I’ve been scouring maps nonstop. Definitely planning on covering lots of ground till I find them