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When you first start hunting ducks it's HARD. Nobody is going to tell you where and even if they did the information is stale and could be false.

I've found a lot of duck spots and will say how I found a few.

Went hunting in the woods where it's 4 miles by 3 miles and wandered around looking. The first "timber hole" I found wasn't even a good hole but it had a log to sit on and I sat there all morning listening to people kill ducks "over there".

Around 9 or so I got tired of just sitting so I hid my decoys and gun and simply walked around. I kept bumping into hunters.
Finally I got way to the other end of the area and then it happened. I got about 300 mallards up off an old farm pond hidden in the woods. Ironic but I'd fell into that same pond on my very first duck hunt many years earlier with my dad. He said I'd walked right by the sign that said "deep water" lol It's thick timber. Could have missed the sign easily as it's like 50 years old and rusty as fuck.

Had a dog then so the next day I parked close, carried my gear and brought the dog to the pond in the timber (Oakwood Bottoms in Illinois) We slaughtered the mallards for three days and then it all froze up.

That's how you do it but it takes a day or two of struggling.

Yep, some of my best spots are places I found when hunting nearby, and watching birds drop into them. Google Earth sure made a lot of secret hideaways, not so secret anymore. As one older hunter told me a few years back "there are no more secrets, only dedication"

Deltaman wrote:Yep, some of my best spots are places I found when hunting nearby, and watching birds drop into them. Google Earth sure made a lot of secret hideaways, not so secret anymore. As one older hunter told me a few years back "there are no more secrets, only dedication"

True dat.
I've found spots by seeing the guys slamming them. Then took a look later after they were done and OMG there were cases and cases of dead rounds floating. I mean like 5000 shells. You find a spot like that...you MIGHT want to remember it and then that day when nobody else shows up...go hunt it.
In South central Illinois there is a walk in...There are many spots where you'll find the floating flotilla of shells nobody sinks.
(dumb)

One of them places is called "Otter Pond" at the Carlisle Lake walk-ins. There has been shooting fights over that hole. I don't even try to go there.

In South central Illinois there is a walk in...There are many spots where you'll find the floating flotilla of shells nobody sinks.
(dumb)

Many years ago, when arriving in a bay before daylight and looking for a blind to occupy, we always picked out the "Christmas Tree" blind, the one with all of the green and red hulls floating around it.
Nowadays, I sink my hulls (or pick them up), and the only thing I leave are footprints if I am on the bank. No need in advertising