Duck Hunting Land for Sale--How to Find the Right Property

Duck Hunting Land for Sale – How to Find the Right Property

When you start looking to invest in hunting property, specifically for a duck club, what are some of the key property features you should focus on to create that prime waterfowl spot? Ducks are creatures of habit AND habitat! American Land Company has put together the following tips & questions to ask when searching for your next waterfowl property.

1. Water. This key ingredient is critical in most areas for successful duck hunting. Ducks like water. And you need to either have the ability to provide them with that water, or have some permanent water source on your land: i.e. a river, stream, lake etc. Most duck clubs get their water via pumping, either through a well or from a re-lift, or camelback pump. If the land for sale that you’re considering doesn’t already have the means to get water, then you’ll need to budget for additional capital expenditures such as drilling a well & installing a submersible pump; or purchasing a pto driven pump and either a tractor or power unit to run it. Either scenario will most likely run well into the tens of thousands of dollars.

2. Food. This is another obvious, yet critical ingredient for great duck hunting clubs. Most waterfowl hot spots already have food, because they’re either a working farm (or have well established food plots) or they’re a wetland / marsh. If this is a working farm, then who’s going to farm it? If the answer is NOT you, then you’ll need to talk to several farmers and figure out a way to rent it so that the farmer can make some money, and you can have some food left for the ducks. Make sure you get a signed lease if you’re renting the farming out to someone! I can tell you from experience, ducks LOVE corn and rice, so if those crops can be grown successfully in your area then by all means plant them. If the property is a wetland or marsh, then you can get with your local NRCS agent to help give you guidance on how to properly manage your wetland. They’re experts at this and they’re there to assist you.

3. Rest. This is a feature that is often times overlooked, yet it's critical to good duck hunting. All waterfowl need a time and place to rest. Take a cue from the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission’s and the Missouri Department of Conservation’s waterfowl management practices, they both stop hunting at around noon on the majority of their respective public hunting areas. Yet these public hunting lands continue to offer some of the best duck hunting in the United States year in and year out, despite the fact that they’re also some of the hardest hunted. Why? Because they have rest areas, they stop hunting at mid day and they provide cover. As hard as this is for a lot of land owners to actually implement, it’s a must if you want to have consistently good duck club.

4. Cover. Waterfowl like to "feel" safe, and cover allows them that security. Examples of good cover are: standing corn or any uncut crop, uncut grass, cattails, willows, trees and brush, levees for wind breaks, etc. Cover can be harsh and impenetrable, like thick woods or a cattail marsh, or benign, like a levee for a wind break. But the bottom line here is, if you give the ducks some type of cover, they’re much more likely to use your property.

5. Pressure. Does the area get hunted heavily? Either from other hunting properties or public hunting areas? Regardless, this can be a catch 22 if the area receives a lot of hunting pressure. On the one hand, if it does get hunted heavily, there’s a reason: there’s a lot birds that use that area. That means this area is "IN THE FLYWAY". That’s good! But on the other hand, that also means that you’re going to be facing pressured birds, which makes for some challenging hunts. As for me, I would rather the area be full of hunting clubs, because I know the ducks will be there when fall arrives and I can manage my property to make sure the birds use my place.

6. Size. This one is really up to you to decide, but obviously, the larger your property is, the harder, and more costly it will be to maintain. Think about who will be doing most of the leg work and how much help you can count on. I can assure you, properly maintaining and managing any hunting property, but especially a waterfowl hunting club, is A LOT OF BACK BREAKING WORK! So don’t bite off more than you can handle.

7. Capital Improvements. Are there levees already constructed? Are they in good shape? What about pipes and gates? Does the property come with equipment like tractors, pumps, boats, atv’s? How about blinds? These must all be considered when purchasing a potential duck hunting property. Remember, this is a labor intensive investment.

8. Utilities & Lodging. Does the property have electricity? What about water, either from a rural water supply or well? If it’s from a well you might consider getting it tested for water quality? Does the property have a place for lodging or to put a camper? How far are the nearest hotels? Again, these are important considerations. The last thing you’re going to want to do is drive an hour to a motel after working all day in the heat and water with the snakes and mosquitoes. If lodging isn’t present on the property, maybe there’s an old farm house nearby that you could rent? Or maybe there’s a farmer close by with water and electric that will let you hook up a camper?

One thing to be careful of is the "build it and they will come" theory. I’m not saying it’s not possible with ducks, because it is--I’ve done it. But, if you’re going to go that route then make sure the property in question is in a flyway and has some sort of access to water. Those 2 ingredients are a must!

Another possibility is to enter into a hunting lease before you buy. See if you can lease the land in question for a season with the option of purchasing? Even if you have to pay a premium price for the lease, that’s a lot cheaper than finding out you’ve invested in a duck hunting club that the ducks won’t come to! Don’t be afraid to ask around--local diners, farmer’s co-op’s, tractor dealerships, sporting goods stores--all of these places can be a wealth of local knowledge.

If you’ve gone through you’re check list and everything pans out okay, then it’s time to pull the trigger (pun intended). Developing and maintaining your own duck hunting property is a very satisfying endeavor. It’s also a lot of work, and it takes a lot of money. But then, as my Dad is so fond of saying…"we’re making memories"!

A duck hunters guide to farming for ducks

Farming for ducks. The name implies that you're raising ducks, or waterfowl, from hatching eggs to full fledged adults. That's not what I'm talking about though. I'm talking about growing crops and farming to attract ducks and geese in the fall. This has become a hotly debated issue among waterfowlers. But that's a whole blog in and of itself. This post is about what to grow to attract ducks to your favorite spot this fall. Understand this, I'm NOT a waterfowl biologist. I'm a veteran duck hunter with over 30 years of experience. I've been a farmer for only 5 years now, but I've learned a few things about what really attracts ducks.

There are basically 2 types of foods that duck hunters should focus on for attracting waterfowl: crops and moist soil units (msu's) or wetland grasses. Both have their place in the overall management scheme for duck hunting spots.

MSU's or Moist Soil Units. I won't get too heavily into the msu's, but suffice it to say, they are a tremendous source of valuable food for waterfowl. And they're basically free to grow. The seeds are already in the soil bank, you just have to 'promote them' to grow. This is usually very easily done with the proper timing of water release from your favorite msu. In our case, at Mallard Farms, we like to start slowly letting water off our msu's in late May to early June. This always produces a fantastic stand of barnyard grass (basically a wild millet similar to Japanese millet), smartweed (both nodding & Pennsylvania), and yellow nutsedge for us. This results in a great msu that attracts a lot of early season birds.

There are many different crops that can be grown for waterfowl: corn, buckwheat, barley, rice, milo, various millets, soybeans, and even sunflowers to name a few. But I want to focus on corn, buckwheat and the millets (rice would be another crop to focus on in the southern states). These have been our best producers by far for overall duck numbers and hunting success.

Buckwheat: This plant is actually considered a weed to some farmers in the upper Midwest. It's used a lot in the making of flour. Waterfowl, deer and turkey are very attracted to this crop. But we've found that ducks absolutely LOVE this crop after a hard freeze! Buckwheat is relatively easy to grow. We've had our best success in west central Missouri by planting in late July to early August. Our planting method of choice is drilling at about 1/2" - 3/4" deep. You can also broadcast it onto a prepared seedbed, but be sure and either drag a harrow over it and run a cultipacker over it to get good seed to soil contact. Our buckwheat usually gets about 2' - 3' tall, so we try to flood it about 1' deep. However, we've found that the shallower areas (6" deep or less) are preferred by waterfowl. Here's a video taken on one of our buckwheat fields:

Mallard Farms Duck Club - Buckwheat Field from Chandler Daggett on Vimeo.

Millets: We've planted browntop, proso, and Japanese millet. The proso millet really attracted a lot of mallards the first year we used it. We use the same planting methods on all of the millets as we do with buckwheat - drilled at about 1/2" - 3/4" deep in late July - early August. We try to flood it about 6" deep because, again, mallards, pintails and teal (dabbling ducks in general) prefer that shallow depth. The browntop millet wasn't really a big success. The Japanese millet is a great attractor for early season ducks and we plant some every year. But it's also a big attractor to black birds and they're really hard it before the ducks arrive. However, Japanese millet is great about volunteering, so it's perfect for ditches and other low lying areas. Because after it volunteers the following year it can be manipulated.

Corn: Corn is King! Bar none! But, it's also VERY EXPENSIVE to plant and maintain. We have a real working farm and we grow several hundred acres of corn each year. If you're going to plant corn 'the right way', you really need access to a planter. Corn grows best when it's planted about 2" deep plus or minus a 1/2" (depending on soil conditions). And corn is a very large user of Nitrogen. We use round-up ready corn so that we can spray generic glyphosate on it to take care of the weeds--weeds are also extremely large user of, and extremely efficient users of Nitrogen! If you don't get a handle on your weeds early, they'll kill your corn yields. Here in our part of MO we start planting corn around tax day, April 15th. But with the wet springs we've had lately we've planted some of our 'duck corn' in late June - early July. But earlier is better so it's not tasseling in the hottest part of the summer. Then we try and flood it no more than 1' deep. Contrary to what a lot of hunters say, we don't want the water up to the ears (or about 2.5' - 3' deep). In our experience, once again, shallower is better. We've witnessed too many thousands of ducks fly into, and knock down, corn stalks that are in inches deep water. Below are just a few of the many vidoes we've got of ducks in corn:

Mallard Farms Duck Club - CRP Lake from Chandler Daggett on Vimeo.

Mallard Farms Duck Club - 3 Banded Swans from Chandler Daggett on Vimeo.

Mallard Farms Duck Club - Roach Field from Chandler Daggett on Vimeo.

Mallard Farms Duck Club- 2007 from Chandler Daggett on Vimeo.

The bottom line? Get out there and get some food planted for the ducks. You won't be sorry when waterfowl season rolls around in the fall.

American Land Company