New spot I've found is covered in ducks (teal, woodies and mallards) at night so they are roosting there. This place is on a lake and the spot has a lot of bushes with good veggies mixed in. They have food there and protection. My question is since they are roosting there, when the birds leave in the morning, will they come back that morning or once they are gone are they gone til evening? Tuesday we still killed a few early and then had some filter back in later that we killed. We had quite a few mallards work but not decoy (bad set-up). Today once they left they were gone so I'm not sure what to think. Tuesday it was cooler, windy and sunny. Today warmer, no wind and cloudy. Maybe it was the conditions?

They may trickle back in once. The only time to hunt the roost is the last evening of the season. Out of respect for other hunters and for a simple reason that it doesnt make sense to run "your" birds off your lake. find where they are going during the day. You've found a place that holds birds, now figure out which way they leave and do your research. It'll pay off in spades with a spot that holds birds year after year rather than one decent shoot followed by 8 skunks.


Just my .02

if its public... hunt it... because someone will so it may as well be you...

Do what nogeese said.

It's public and I agree, might as well be me. But, I'd rather go somewhere and kill ducks than waste time there if all they are using it for is roosting.

Through the season ducks will use different places for different things. Just give it a shot.

Sometimes they derserve to die, roost or not.

The blind leading the blind.........

who said anything about a blind?

TBK...If it was me...I would wait on my partner...to go on that one afternoon roost area hunt...LOL

Kinda what I was thinking. I'll email ya.

Hunt it. We hunted a roost all of last season and killed a ton of ducks off it. We hunted mornings only and there were still just as many ducks at the end of the season as there were in the beginning.

If that is where the ducks are in your area, then hunt it. Pretty simple.

Bluegill, that is kind of the problem, we have an area that is roosting quite a few ducks in the evenings but we have hunted it twice in the mornings with little success. The ducks are out of there just before legal and just a little after.

Sorry for the highjack pardner.

[/quote]Bluegill, that is kind of the problem, we have an area that is roosting quite a few ducks in the evenings but we have hunted it twice in the mornings with little success. The ducks are out of there just before legal and just a little after. [/quote]

The ducks would leave around shooting light, usually when we fired the first shot. Usually in the huge wave of the first flight, we would all get our limits of wood ducks. After that small groups would return all through the morning, mainly gadwall and mallards.

Late in the season they would leave before legal light but they would always return throughout the morning in small groups. I guess every roost is different.

Bluegill, that is kind of the problem, we have an area that is roosting quite a few ducks in the evenings but we have hunted it twice in the mornings with little success. The ducks are out of there just before legal and just a little after. [/quote]

The ducks would leave around shooting light, usually when we fired the first shot. Usually in the huge wave of the first flight, we would all get our limits of wood ducks. After that small groups would return all through the morning, mainly gadwall and mallards.

Late in the season they would leave before legal light but they would always return throughout the morning in small groups. I guess every roost is different. [/quote]

The first day this is kinda how it worked. Yesterday it didn't and I think it had more to do with flying conditions. I think we'll rest it a week, then give it a solid effort again next week and hunt til noon.

You didn't highjack me FLW. Your part of the equation.

I've hunted the same type roosting areas and had very little luck with the exception of woodies. In the morning hunts, after you shoot once they book a$$ out of there and in the evening they arrive back to the roost after legal shooting time. When I hunt a roost I do not use any decoys and move around depending how they are flying. The ducks don't seem to be nearly as skittish. I know a couple of spots on public waters that hold thousands of ducks when the water level is right and they always suck me back in for another try.

My experience has only been with woodies.... the bird lol. I've hunted the same woddie roost 2 times in a week without any change in the number of birds. We usually go out nad hunt this roost 2 or 3 times a year but not much more than that. On another pond we hunt that was a roost for gadwall, widgeon and teal, hunt it a couple times and they wouldn't be back for a week or so.