Best way to bait ducks

First off I know this is completely illegal and we don't do it.

We planted a crop of millet last year and flooded it for the season. While the plants seeded very well I don't think we noticed much of a difference than the year before when there was no food plot planted. Fast forward to last weekend... a friend told me we should dump a bag of corn and we would see tons of ducks in that area since they can see it much better from the air than the millet. I told him why would 50 lbs of corn make any difference when we have thousands of pounds of seed already in the water.

So my question is does baiting with corn actually bring in the ducks more than if you baited with a bag of millet seed or rice grains? If corn is more attractive then I think we would add corn to the mix with the millet and smart weed.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

Are you asking if throwing a bunch of corn in your hole is better than throwing a bunch of millet seed in there, or if planting corn is better than planting millet? Two very different things. Please clarify.

Flooded corn

This is kind of a trap question isn't it?

Hunted flooded corn, Milo and chufa crops. If they aren't coming into flooded Milo then they won't come it to flooded corn crops

Flooded corn is better but again if you have flooded Milo and they aren't there then you just don't have the ducks or are off the flyway.

Corn vs Milo only matters if the two crops are with in feeding distance.

Yes would planting corn be better than planting millet.

We planted jap millet last year and thinking of supplementing with planted corn this spring by using the 'grassy corn' method.

We have milo in our dove fields but read milo seeds don't hold up as well to flooding so we planted jap millet in the marsh area and flooded that.

I am wanting to know if corn is 'attractive' to ducks than millet.

We were covered up in duck weed at the beginning of the season which lead to a 9 minute 4 man limit opening morning. If you can find some fill a bucket and throw it in your duck holes (where legal). Next year you should be good.

Flooded rice, duck weed and flooded tomatoes have been some of our best hunts when I lived in Cali. The flooded corn was hit and miss, but the tomatoes and rice would always hold thousands of birds. Hunted a couple big ponds last week up in northern Oklahoma that were in the middle of wheat fields. When scouting we noticed the birds would walk back and forth from the pond to the wheat.

It sounds like you don't have ducks in the area, they have not found your hole, or they don't like your hole because of some other factor like predators, too close to a road or house, dogs or something like that.

I don't think changing from millet to corn would help.

We had a ton of ducks last year but with 2 500yr floods that blew out our spillway we lost a lot of water and haven't been able to get it back and hold it till we fix the spillway once it finally dries out this year.

Last year we planted no food plots but had a spillway and once the area flooded we had thousands of ducks. So it is hard to determine if the millet helped or not. Too many variables changed this year for us to make an accurate assessment of how well the millet worked.

Being the type of person that has a hard time sitting idle am wanting to experiment with other crops if they are more attractant to ducks this spring.

Your answer is in that last post, no water.
Fix your water impoundment and stick with millet.

I got an area around my pond that dries up during the summer thinking about planting some corn,maize and wheat What do you guys think about that ?

There is a lot more to it than does a duck like corn, etc.

What area are you in, what duck spp are around, and what is the weather like.

Mallards pile in to corn when everything is frozen, they are getting cold and need a high energy food. They'll stay in the wetlands as long as they can. If you just have OTM (other than mallards), stick with natural or something they can easily eat.

But first add water, that is what they really want with their meal.

But to what is the best to bait a duck...banding crews use bright yellow barley

If you hunt near Matagorda then I would stick with millet or milo. We have 40 acres of flooded corn last year and our moist soil out performed it. Sticking with native stuff and some supplemental millet would be great

I can tell you this about 5 years ago we hunted a public lake in NE Texas the game warden shows up about half way through the season and tells us the lake is closed for hunting the rest of the season because someone poured corn down the edge of the bank on the opposite side of the lake from where we hunted.