I guess the question is can I plant millet around the edge of a beaver pond and leave it standing when the beavers come back and the pond re-fills? I guess the beavers moved on somewhere else for the summer, but they are always there in the winter time and the woodies swamp the place. Of course, right now the pond is about bone dry, so I was thinking about planting around the edge, or as far out into the pond where the water will be come winter. Is this legal or considered baiting? I'll leave it standing.

As long as you leave it standing and do not manipulate it, it's legal. Of course I'll need directions to this pond to inspect it to make sure. Just sow it on the dry ground and in the mud. Also, do not use browntop as it likes drier conditions. Make sure you use japanese millet. Jap takes a good 60 days to mature so give yourself enough time. If the Jap gets up a few inches high, it can stand some water on it. I've seen it growing in a couple inches of water like rice.

If it was about dry I would plant everything I could,millet and corn especially.There should be enough moisture there to get the corn going,I'd try it anyway.If it starts filling up just bust a place out in the dam to keep the water low.

here's one hole we have


and another loaded with millet, this field has not been planted in 2 years

any kind of available millet you can think of, started with Jap and Brown top and added some foxtail

I'll need directions to those 2 holes to inspect them.

Fine looking spots there

I already have my inspector
not bad for 15 minutes, only after the green that day, the woodies played deep in the woods

the earlier post first hole, did you notice all the sorghum? We had a corn in there too, that seems to be the best combo we've had

Do you think sorghum would be a better choice or try both?

I've wondered what a sorghum/corn combo would do. Looks like pretty good! You sure do know how to make a fella jealous. I've never been able to count on greenheads like that and pass on the woodrows.

We've planted jap millet the last 2 years and it's done pretty well for us. We sprayed strips in ours this past year with some 2,4d & dicamba to keep the sesbania out of it and that seemed to help a little. However, where we had the low pH the jap still didn't grow well but we had tons of panic grass, barnyard grass, and other misc. wetland plants. If you're planting jap in south Alabama I'd look for a good day sometime between July 25-Aug. 10 to put it in the ground. With this heat you might have some problems with the sesbania over topping the jap. That happened to a bunch of ours 2 years ago so that's why we sprayed strips in it this year. I'm by no means an expert but I really enjoy the habitat stuff.

Sorghum is nice in conjunction with corn in deeper pools where you can control the water, sorghum is thick under the water and hard to walk thru though. In knee deep and less water various millets all the way.

Truthfully in many years past, flooded johnson grass and other wild grasses work very very very well. The landowner is an old timer that thinks you gotta plant for them so we do. We've killed big ducks out of flooded cotton fields before, used to wear them out near Hillsboro off the side of hwy 72 in flooded wild grasses.

I wouldn't make openings for the ducks unless you need them to land in a certain area, they seem to like making their own. We do plant millet in front of the blind on the first hole with the larger corn and sorghum kinda forcing them to our hole. By late season though that's not always the case.

If I had a beaver hole that dried out in summer and it was still moist, Jap and Browntop. I know a guy that used to fly on Jap in back areas of a swamp, worked well for them for many years.

Landshark I'm the guy that gets to keep all the ducks on each trip, it's not hard for me to pass, since I'm about the only one eating them. I even get the ducks when I don't go hunting, they just show up on my front porch. One of my hunting buddies doesn't miss too many days.

Found a bag of dove and another bag of ducks last night in the freezer, dove went on the grill last night and it looks like duck this weekend,

I've been very lucky to have great spots over many years now, and really haven't paid much to do so, back in the 80's and early 90's we never paid a dime for duck land and had more holes than we could hunt.

That's because it wasn't the cool or "in" thing to do back then. Those were the good old days weren't they? Now, it's hard to get a good spot because a the folks with deep pockets or college boys spending daddies money want to be trendy and kill a duck. Used to be, land that was fit for a duck was pretty much worthless to most folks.

my main duck buddy is rough and gruff kinda guy, jokes very seldom, a few years ago he called saying he'd just decaled up his truck not

the real thing I miss is the sportsmanship, if a group down from us was working birds, we let em, then they returned the favor

it's the duckmasters now, I will NOT camp out for any hunting spot, talked with some guys that camp 3 days before the opener and folks still come in on top of them

Same here. I camped out twice, only one night, a few years ago and said "never again" after the second one.

That's because it wasn't the cool or "in" thing to do back then. Those were the good old days weren't they? Now, it's hard to get a good spot because a the folks with deep pockets or college boys spending daddies money want to be trendy and kill a
duck.


I know what you mean,Iv'e only been duck hunting for 4 years now but I started because I love to wingshoot and because deer hunting is just boring to me until January,In the last few years it seems like every kid that is atleast 16 has got a duck boat now,I have had permission to hunt a fairly large beaverpond for the last several years and have had it to myself,well this past season a few of these kids saw my truck parked there and knew I was duck hunting and made the comment to my nephew at school that they were gonna ask for permission to hunt it to,I just about blew a gasket when I heard that,these kids know nothing about respect or not to invade someone elses hunting spot,to them it's all about painting their face up,killing a few ducks and posting it on facebook.

We're planting poroso millet for the first time along with the sorghum and corn, just bush hawged and will plant later this week

How's your stuff looking cartervj? The place I hunt is in limbo right now so I'm probably not gonna be able to plant anything this year. I'm just hoping I'll still be able to hunt there. I enjoy the habitat work almost as much as the hunting so I gotta live vicariously through somebody!

Still waiting on it to dry out a little, we had everything ready and the rain came

kinda getting a little nervous now

Planted Japanese millet between 6 rows of corn and the water's edge. Looks like I got a good stand ! First time we have tried to plant extra groceries for our duck hole. I think it will really help us. coachg

Been a while but how's everybody's millet/corn/sorghum looking?

I didn't get to plant anything this year but have a decent stand of moist soil stuff - panic grass, crabgrass, smartweed, bidens, etc. Got blocks mowed in it this week and started putting a little water in the ditches yesterday. Will bring it up slowly over the next several weeks. Ought to start seeing some wood ducks in it by this time next week. This cooler weather has me and the dog all stirred up!

our sorghum turned into Egyptian Wheat

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj296/cartervj/21055850.jpg