Early Season Duck Decoys

Ducks can be few and far between the first weeks of an early season.

- Garhart Stephenson

Local birds, they know the score and can be difficult to dupe. Yet waiting for the migrators isn’t an option either, not after already waiting so long for opening day.

What’s a body to do?

How about spend some time driving the back roads and also hiking in to find where the residents hang out, what they do, and when they do it?

Local ducks get locked into daily routines, and scouting is the key that opens the lock. The tricky part comes when those routines change, as they will with the hot iron salvos of opening weekend. Preseason scouting may uncover some real honey holes. But chances are other hunters will notice these, too. So also note otherwise good areas that for whatever reason only draw a few ducks. When the opening-day barrage moves birds around, these locations can fill up quickly.

After opening weekend things quiet down and the ducks may take a chance on returning to previous haunts. But if they find something to munch on quieter waters, they may just stay. Midday, after the early gunning at better-known locations, such backwaters are even more likely to hold ducks.

But if the ducks are already there when you arrive, setting out dekes may not be productive. Jump shooting can be more rewarding, even if brief.

In my younger years when a tight schedule dictated a quick-strike approach, I jumped a lot of ducks, and those ducks often settled back on nearby water where they could be jumped again.

Another option is to just wait for them to return. As long as no shots are fired during the initial jump, they are likely to come back. In fact, some circle back so quickly you won’t have time to set decoys.