{"id":2184,"date":"2018-03-04T05:07:57","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T05:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rangetoreel.com\/?p=2184"},"modified":"2018-06-23T11:32:41","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T11:32:41","slug":"cold-weather-duck-hunting-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rangetoreel.com\/cold-weather-duck-hunting-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold Weather Duck Hunting Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mother nature rearing its ugly head shouldn’t spell the end of your duck hunting season. With some cold weather hunting gear<\/a> and a large thermos of coffee you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.\u00a0 In fact extreme weather conditions often increase waterfowl activity. Hunters who understand how the cold affects their game and know their basic duck hunting calls<\/a> stand to outperform the competition. Here are a few cold weather duck hunting tips that should give you a slight edge this hunting season.<\/p>\n Water beginning to freeze doesn’t mean the end of duck hunting. You’re actually able to pinpoint exactly where the ducks are going to congregate. Ducks will start to go wherever the water freezes last. If all but one pond on your hunting land freezes you know exactly where the best hunting spot is. The only problem with this thinking is that on public land hunters will start to flock there as well. So unless you have private property you’re going to have to do a little bit of scouting beforehand to keep track of the last freezing point. You’ll see the same trends come up year after year so make sure you take a note of the time of year everything tends to freeze. <\/p>\n If you can’t find any private open water to hunt on you can make your own. Luckily there are a few easy tricks you can employ to break up the ice enough to call in the ducks. By far the easiest method is to use a boat to crunch up the ice. The only real time to try this is if you’re working from a boat blind. All you need to do is carve out a big enough area on the boat launch to get your boat in then slowly crunch through the ice to carve out a hole. The hole needs to be about 50 yards square which will take 45 minutes to an hour. Then slowly carve out the perimeter until you have a big enough area to set up your decoys and hunt from. As hard as it sounds just ignore all the ducks that fly by until your work is done. With little access to open water they’ll come back in no time.<\/p>\n Once you have a big enough hole you’ll want to setup your blind and decoys near the perimeter. If you already have a boat all you’ll need is a boat blind. If you don’t already have a boat blind consider the Beavertail Boat Blind<\/a>. The Beavertail boat blind comes in all shapes and sizes and is very easy to setup. The Beavertail blind is like a hard boat blind in an easy to setup package.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you don’t have a boat you can also try working a pond around the frozen fallen timbers. In this area you’ll want to try and open up a small area around the perimeter. Break off a large chunk of ice and use that to slowly open up a decent sized hole. Simply push the large chunk of ice up underneath the surrounding ice and it should lift up and break off another chunk. Once you have a decent spot opened up put out 10-15 decoys and setup a jerk string to stir up the water a little bit.<\/p>\n Once you get a decent sized area opened up you can try using an ice eliminator. Ice eliminators are electric pumps that are designed to keep ice from forming around boat slips and fish ponds. Once you have a little area opened up you can use an ice eliminator to keep water open in front of your blind. They work by continuously pumping water below the surface to break up the ice formation. My favorite ice eliminator is the Hidgon Ice Blaster<\/a> which is a battery powered unit. If you have access to power try the Kasco De-Icer<\/a>. You’ll want to set this up the night before your hunt so ducks will come in and feed. If they’re on your pond at night they’ll be back the next day.<\/p>\n You can also try attaching a small cheap electric trolling motor (like this one<\/a>) to a fixed mount on the outside of your blind. The best part of this solution is your trolling motor will run off a small battery and should clear out a large chunk of ice. Ice doesn’t have to be the enemy. When you can control the location of open water, you can control where the waterfowl is going to land. Give them a big enough plot to land and you’ll have a fun day hunting.<\/p>\n Large waterfowl like Canadian Geese and mallards will be able to stay in the north longer. Their larger bodies insulate them enough to withstand colder temperatures enough to extend the hunting season. Eventually the frozen lakes will make them run out of food and water. So even the biggest birds will inevitably fly south for the winter. So your best bet is going to be to keep track of the weather conditions. With modern weather reports there’s no reason not to stay on top of the changing weather. Just keep track of dips in the temperature and wind patterns that will make birds fly away to new feeding areas. When you see these dips remember that waterfowl will need a feeding area to continue flying south. So your prime hunting focus should be on finding prime feeding areas to hunt on.<\/p>\n As important as it is to learn the beginner duck calls<\/a>, later on in the season game birds tend to get call shy. So you’re going to have to work even harder to call birds into your hunting area. Try increasing the aggressiveness into your calling patterns. Late in the season an aggressive calling pattern might be all you need to bring them back. Then once they start to turn around try and follow it up with a nice greeting call. There’s a fine line between being aggressive and scaring them away. If that doesn’t work you may just need to tune your duck call<\/a>.With practice you’ll be able to call them in like a pro.<\/p>\nDuck Hunting Tips For Cold Weather<\/h2>\n
Look For Open Water<\/h3>\n
Try Using an Ice Eliminator<\/h3>\n\n
Keep an Eye on The Weather<\/h3>\n
Try To Change Up The Calling Pattern<\/h3>\n
Comeback Call<\/h3>\n\n