I know we’ve all heard about it, but have you actually seen ducks eating duckweed?

I've watched ducks eating it on Beaver Dam in Tunica quite a bit back when I hunted there

Not sure. But I have shot them/at them when they light on top of it. Mainly early teal.

It’s funny you asked this. Me and a good pal of mine have had this conversation sort of several times.

Me and my buddy hunt almost exclusively flooded timber, buck brush holes, beaver ponds, etc. We have several hole that we’ve killed ducks out of years ago. Mallards, gadwalls, wood ducks, black ducks occasionally and the sort. Slowly those holes got worse and worse until the point of nothing but woodies. The only thing that we can figure is the presence of duck weed. When we were killing ducks good in these holes, there was 0 duck weed. Now, it’s completely green with it. That’s the ONLY thing that changed about these places. No dead or dying timber, water levels are still the same, same hunting pressure. I think the big ducks don’t want it, because if they did, it would be a smorgasbord of food for them.

Maybe you killed all the big ducks

Come to think of it I remember seeing a dozen or two wood ducks feeding on duckweed last year during September. I don’t hunt in many spots that have it...mainly milfoil for me

Found a slough while scouting a few years ago off the White River in AR that we watched ducks pouring into with our binos. Went back early the next morning to set up where they were at and it was full of duckweed. The water was a little deeper than we would’ve wanted it to have been but we shot a limit of ducks that morning between 4 of us. 1 woodie and the rest were Gadwall. Didn’t see a mallard but we were out of there by 7:15. I have been to that same spot since and shot greenheads but only a few. Long story short, I think they’ll eat it in a pinch or if they feel pressure elsewhere but the big ducks, like mallards for example, would rather eat acorns in shin deep water.

I have seen them feed on it in swamps out in Etowah/Cherokee Co before. One hole was loaded with it but they fed on the edges not on top of it. We killed two bands off Mallards in there in one week. That said, there was a hole at the end of field that never got planted because it was under water or too muddy when farmer planted in spring. Place was no bigger than 20x40 yards square. Guy we had permission to hunt land from said if you want mallards, there is your spot. He was not lying. Mallard after mallard piled into this spot for about two weeks. They were eating the grass and what little acorns fell from edge trees. I won't say how many we killed, but it was stupid.

Here is another thing. Find you a stock pond that has the stagnation film on top of it. Don't know what they like about it, but it is money. I watched in amazement one morning a pond no bigger than 1/2 acre. 13 dead ducks laying on the water and they were still doing the "duck tornado" where they funneled in on top of each other just to eat that pond scum. There may or may not be a video of that floating around....................

They will eat the heck out of pond weed.

If you want to see proof...travel to Yazoo City MS. There is a cypress brake that is pretty large, maybe 200 acres that you can see where 49E/W split. Right now it is solid green. Gadwalls start arriving next week or so in numbers. By Thanksgiving there is usually several thousand plus woodies (if you look in the corner) and local Canadians. Each week when we go by you see less and less duckweed. By Christmas and New Year's it's basically gone. Mallards do prefer seeds and acorns but will eat it. Most times a duckweed hole has primarily gadwaiis and wigeon and woodies but other ducks certainly show up as well.
Beaver Dam in North MS is a prime example as Crenshaw stated...Gadwalls and wigeon...and some mallards.

Yes.

If someone will PM me a phone or email I will send pic of from yesterday of ducks and duckweed to post

Yea, they eat the hail out of it and the grey ducks will eat the coontail too.