I’ve been a public guy 90%+ my whole life. Have done hunts one off on private; just the last 3-4 years have had access to a 40 acre pond, great duck habitat on the north end, flooded smartweed and timber. Have looked into buying land in Oklahoma or N Texas the last couple of years and can’t get up for it, which leads to my question. I get the appeal of private, it’s great rolling out of bed an hour before LST and riding the Polaris down to the blind, but do you guys have to have multiple properties to hunt to keep it good all season? Have seen Greekangler allude to “don’t get ducks on this pond until December” this season. I guess I struggle with the ability to hold birds/get new birds if you hunt it a bunch. Seems like proximity to a big population of birds, and 100acres + of habitat would be about the only way to hold ducks all season? I guess it’s just a rambling question, but what size place does it take to do more than hunt every other Saturday morning and shoot at the resident woodies in the creek and the 8 new mallards that are using the pond since last time?

I bought 40 acres about 4 years ago. Took a field in the middle and levyed it off which is about 5 acres total. (Still have 15 more acres to expand if I want with hardwoods) Put flood gates in an installed a well so I can flood and remove water when needed. Ive been planting it in millet each year. Some reseeds itself, but I plant several bags each year cause I want it thick. Each year Ive seen an increase in duck numbers on my place. Which this year is my 3rd hunting year on it and Im holding an unbelievable amount of birds. They stay around almost the whole season.
To me there are some factors you really need to look at.....
1. Does the area have ducks moving thru, hanging around, etc.
2. Can my soil hold water
3. Is my soil farmable. Millet doesnt just grow like most people think.
4. What is my access to water.
Another key factor for my place is we dont hunt during the week. We hunt almost every weekend. So if you do alot of shooting on the weekend, the week is quiet and they get back comfortable. Plus new birds will move in.
ITs been a learning process. But I think I have the hang of it. And our duck kills each year have more than doubled.
If you have food, youll have birds. That simple.

This.

My Dad and I pretty much had exclusive rights to a big soil conservation lake for about 15 years in the late 90s to early 2000s. We ONLY hunted weekends. On an average precip year in the fall/winter lake averaged about 2.5-3' deep over about 14 acres. It would dry up or pretty much dry up every summer and had super good soil that grew good food sources.

It held a massive amount of birds throughout the season if it was only hunted once per week. More birds than I've seen on any other place I've ever hunted public or private. Year after year. It's in an area where there are just a lot of birds - not too far from JBS wetlands.

You can buy all the private land you can afford - but you can't change the migration routes of ducks to come there. Gotta buy where the birds be.

There is only on true king…. The corn king…. Build a levee system, two blinds, plant corn, flood corn, take hero picture’s, put on market for $$$$$$$, buy bigger place do same thing, sell it for $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Then just buy hunts all around the world making other people do all the work.

Sinkey hit on a lot of it, but too many variables to give an exact answer.

Having food and a water source is #1. You need to be able to control the water on and off your food source. The next biggest thing is knowing how to hunt. You have to keep the pressure off the birds or they will simply turn nocturnal. If you believe corn is king like our clown below. Go listen to some of the podcasts from the guys with the big corn impoundments off the Mississippi River. There's an art to it, and it's not simply flood corn.

I can say it helps to be the only game in town and next to several Federal refugees or soil conservation lakes they winter on if you build one. Also, don't shoot into large flocks. Get in and get out if you want to be successful.




Really? Guess that's corn in the middle of White Oak Duck woods they planted.

I hunt both public and private. Sinkey gave good advice but be careful about manipulating a planted crop. I will add another twist. A roost pond you don’t hunt and satellite marshes scattered about the property to alternate hunts on. Upside is ducks don’t get blown out of the property. Downside is it takes more land.

Ol’son!! That’s because they didn’t plant sweet corn!!! I do love me some white oaks though but they don’t drop all season….. WO=big red coated bucks!!!

PS: I’m billing you for my duck consulting advice

Barney. I don’t think he knows what The Whiteoak duck woods is.

If I won the lottery that would be my first buy.. I’d drive up there in my beat up truck with no heater to buy it.

Ol’little son!!! What’s that yellow stuff in the picture….field corn… not sweet…

Find you a spot near some big water and you'll have ducks.
Ducks will fly to and from the bigger water every day and your tanks could be there lay over spot or less pressure spot.

Thanks for all the responses, any characteristics of roost ponds that you can avoid in making a wetland? The soil conservation place we’ve had is a roost, all the birds bust out at first light, might as well hunt for 30 minutes and maybe wait for the 8 o clock flock and that’s about it. Would much rather hunt the loaf or water hole with ducks trickling in and not relying on that area to roost and stay in the area. No idea how to manage best for that aside from have lots of groceries like several have said.

For water control, are you guys pulling off of creek or river? Well? Natural water collection from several tanks?

Some places I can get by hunting every Saturday and it can still produce most days throughout the season if the conditions are right.

However I typically have 2-3 places to rotate and also get invites to go several others private places durning the season.

The biggest problem, and biggest opportunity in NTX. We don't have a lot of food. Private land with food will hold ducks. Anybody got an extra 100 million laying around so we can lease up 50,000 acres and plant peanuts and such on it? Probably in 100 - 500 acre parcels. If you do I'll manage it and let you hunt it once in a while. You could even bring a friend sometimes.

If you pull from a naturally water way it’s cheaper than commercial well, but you need to get with local water board authority for that water way to do so.

Create a food source away from roasting ponds, don’t hunt the roasts.

Biggest problem in TX is freeze line and season dates,

What's wrong with season dates? other than having a 5 day split, which SUCKS....need to go back to opening 1st weekend of November and having the split last 2 weeks like it used to.

Let the season start Dec 1 and go until Feb 28th

Fact. The season dates are the excuse of folks that don’t scout.

Yeah let’s kill breeding pairs. That’s genius!

Go cry to DU home fry, they will mate back up.

Wishing the dates past January 31 is like wishing for a longer pecker. Waste of breath. Giddy up and hunt.

I like how the pond popping deer hunter is in here giving wetland advice 😂😂😂😂

Damn right, I’m also same guy to cheap to flood corn.

Which DU banquet are you and BarneyWho going as a couple to this year?

Just stating facts sir. It ain’t happening. And it wouldn’t change anything anyways. Mallards don’t come to Texas in numbers like they did 20 years ago… not even in February. Because of flooded corn in Kansas…. And DU