I’ve NEVER been duck hunting but it’s always piqued my interest. Looking at picking up a new lease and it has 3 ponds (roughly 3 acres in total). It’s 2 miles from Warrior River. Do you think ducks would even use this? I’m sure wood ducks would be the primary bird. Say we leased it, could I plant millet, sorghum or corn around the edges of the pond to draw them in? In general how would I go about drawing the birds in?

I’m thinking it might make a great dove field too.

Feed, Feed, Feed and more Feed.

I'm curious to know what people have had success with in the past as well. We've got about an acre pond that we used to raise crawfish in that I'm thinking about planting wild rice in for next year.

We have 2 ponds (approx. 2 acres each), that for the last 3 years I have tried the Japanese millet around the edges thing with zero luck. I had one year that it didn't head out, but the other two I have had great stands, just no birds showed up. We are in an area that has a good population of woodies. This is owned property, so I decided to invest in the long term route and planted 10 oak trees along the edges and also ordered 50 buttonbush plants that will be planted once I receive them. I know this is a multi-year ROI deal, but I am just trying to get a more constant food source. In the meantime, we also have a 3-4 acre beaver pond that gets visited by a few woodies each year. Some years are better than others as far as numbers. This year will be our first attempt in draining, planting and then flooding it. Not to derail the thread, but if anyone has some advice on this project, it would be greatly appreciated.

Whatever you do, you’d probably have more success if you only hunted it once or twice per season, when the birds were down.

Not enough birds around here to hunt it consistently.

Planting for waterfowl can be tricky business. The first thing I would do is assess the current ponds. Typically the shallower the better in most instances. Also, if there are surrounding oak trees you might already have good habitat for wood. Also, check to see if there is any aquatic vegetation growing in the ponds. Planting on the edges might not be enough to significantly attract and hold ducks. I’m not saying they won’t eat it, but that’s pretty small scale planting. It’s not like planting a small green field for deer, as we all know that can be effective for having deer frequent a field. If you’re able to drain them and plant each one, it might draw in some ducks that wouldn’t otherwise be there. That might be a lot of work though! However, it could be that spending time and money into draining and planting the ponds and having them chalked with food might not even make a difference.

Food helps but ducks tend to use the same areas year after year. If they are not using the pond then it may take years to attract ducks. Ducks will imprint on an area, so pouring out corn, millet and milo for a few years and NOT hunting may bring some ducks. Will be an expensive, long term project. I spend my money and time hunting in AR.

hunted a big roost slough years ago that was full of those button bush shrubs. That mallards absolutely covered it up.

Nailed it

Yep, for what you gonna spend in cash and time, I'd pack up the truck one or two weekends a year and drive to a flyway and hunt with an outfitter. You'll kill a lot more birds and you may even save money.

You could probably attract some new ducks to the area, eventually.

It's fine to say "go to Arkansas or MS delta", but that's not worth it for a lot of folks. I know people who have spent $2,000 for a weekend in Arkansas and killed 2 birds. This whole duck season was a bust over there.

I'd rather kill a few close to home and be home for lunch.

I would much rather kill ducks close to home and deer hunt in the afternoon. Duck hunting in my local holes is hit or mostly miss. Killed 5 ducks in AL this year on 2 properties.

Duck hunt an area if you have access. If it is any good decide if you want to spend money to improve the hole. I have been there, done that and have the T-shirt to prove it. I now hunt in Arkansas.

Yep, I know guys who have spent well into 6 figures trying to make a duck hole in a non-flyway state work.

I know of a property right now a guy is trying to make it work. He's telling me about the dozer work, the water control structures, the planting, etc. and I just know how this is gonna turn out.

I also know a guy who after season closed would put 1800lbs of shelled corn into a few flooded fields. I don't know if he ever imprinted any thing on there. Last I heard he was struggling to kill more than 2 ducks/trip.


I kill more ducks on opening weekend on public ground in Arkansas than he will kill in 5 years on their property.

It's great to have a place to go and shoot 2 wood ducks, but I'm way too angry at em to mess with the money and work for that limited success. If that would make you happy, go for it, more power to ya.

I agree simply because sometimes it makes no difference.... the ducks don't use one hole and they use another 200 yards away. It just happens. I've got a blind on essentially public water 400 yards from the closest blind and I probably shoot 10x the number of ducks they shoot. Same with farm ponds. They might come to all, one or none.

It may or may not work out for you. We built a duck hole that was in a direct flights of big ducks, it took about 10 years to establish it. I've also seen holes built along the same creek not draw birds, some looked ducky as it ever could be and never draw birds then watched a cow pond planted the banks in millet and wear them out daily.

My duck holes used to be pretty dang good, now not so much the last few years.

I see fields in AR empty and then immediately next to it not much room for another duck to sit amongst the 10s of thousands of ducks and geese.

I know guys that pump fields in AR and never ever fired a shot for years.

You won't know till you try, but if you're out the way of ducks flying it may not work out.

Water control is a must. IMO you’d better off letting them rest in the ponds and levee off a field 5-10 acres. Ducks like water like 18” deep. Most ponds have very little of this. Plant those fields in grain of your preference and flood every fall. If you could levee off 5–10 acres of oaks next to that field also.