Putting ducks down for duck flighting

[Ultraxs]

I have a duck pond and next year want to provide some good duck flighting for a couple of friends. There isnt loads of wild duck in the area and was wondering how to go about putting ducks down but not for driven but to act like wild flighting ducks is this possible and how? 

[ninjaferret]

Yes, feed the pond and buy in growers.

[shakin stevens]

How are you going to make them flight ?  

[Lloyd90]

They will tend to just lift off the pond, fly around in a bit of a circle (if they even fly at all) and then just come back and land on the pond. 
 

It’s more of a slaughter than a duck flight. 
 

Why not try and attract some wild ducks and boost the wild duck breeding chances in the area? 

[Gerry78]

1 hour ago, Ultraxs said:

I have a duck pond and next year want to provide some good duck flighting for a couple of friends. There isnt loads of wild duck in the area and was wondering how to go about putting ducks down but not for driven but to act like wild flighting ducks is this possible and how? 

Have you thought about putting up duck nesting tubes a flight pond I shoot in a club put mallard in (bought) they chased any wild ducks that came in we had better results with duck nesting tubes Just a thought 

[ninjaferret]

If there's other water they fly. They'll lift off the pond go elsewhere, no disturbance, and come back to feed.

[shakin stevens]

Ducks reared on a pond are no comparison to wild birds flighting in at dusk to a fed flight pond .

Put a few down by all means, they may attract wild ducks, I wouldn't waste my time or money . 

[Ultraxs]

Thank you, I think I will go with the wild duck as not keen on floppy duck as it is just slaughter when would you put the tubes out and when would you start feeding ? 

[Stimo22]

Just as Jerry78, we have two pond and over the years have tried putting a few down but they did not improve the numbers in any way. Would not do it again but have not tried tubes. 

[shakin stevens]

Start feeding it now at dusk in the margins if its shallow , you only need a little bit of corn to start. 

If it starts disappearing and you find the duck feathers you are on the way .

Do a couple of nights watching just see what if any ducks are arriving , then shoot to suit the numbers and guns you want to shoot .

Leave before the flight ends, that gives other birds chance to arrive and stay .

Start all over again feeding and watching for at least two week before you shoot again .

If it's a good productive pond you might need to feed it every day at dusk , if you feed it early ducks tend to arrive to early in the day, you will find them already on when you arrive to shoot . 

If you over shoot it , you might find you will end up back to square one with nothing ! 

[Ultraxs]

Thank you very much for the help 

[harrycatcat1]

I think there was an interesting article in either the last B.A.S.C magazine or the previous one on this subject. I'd love to be able to post a link to it but I cant find it.

[figgy]

Couple of call ducks and auto feeders.

[Jim Neal]

 

There's a small pond within a plantation, in the part of my syndicate that I do the gamekeeping on.  A while back, we tried penning the pond off and releasing ducks two years in a row.  Spectacular fail!  The first year we put about 30 down, shot maybe half a dozen and some got pegged by the dogs, then it went cold and the pond froze over - the last we saw of them.  The second year we upped it to maybe 50 or so.  Same problem except we ended up with even fewer actually shot and even more pegged!  On the worst day, my dog alone had 5 of them!  They flapped up over the pen fence and just ran round in the plantation till they were out of breath, made a very poor attempt at hiding and then hello doggy!

Our problem was that we didn't have another suitable piece of water to fly them to, so we just tried to feed them off the water as far as possible and then just got stuck into them to see what happened.  Never again!

Since then, I've just fed the pond and tried to tempt a few wild ones in, which has worked sporadically.  Last August I went up there after not disturbing it for a few months, heard quacking and crept up to the overgrown pond margin, peering through to see a duck with three very young (maybe a few days old) ducklings on the water.  I was beaming, shuffled just a bit closer and got the fright of my life when a buzzard took off from so close in front of me I might have been standing on its tail.  Probably the explanation for the small brood.

I let them be for a good few weeks, then started feeding the pond again.  The three youngsters (2 drakes and a duck) stuck tight, even after putting them off the water whilst feeding they were always there the next time.  When the season started, on some shoot days they were there and others they weren't.  They never flew to the guns.  About half way through the season I stood the end peg on that drive, nearest the pond, and the three of them got up and curled round, presenting a half chance so I had a go... I definitely connected with one but was left very frustrated when we couldn't find it afterwards.  It was definitely reported as going down, which bugged me all the rest of the day so I went back with a dog the next morning and managed to pick it from a sloppy, muddy ditch just behind the plantation about 80yds from the pond.  With the help of a very willing assistant of course...

We all needed a bath after that.

 

So anyway, back in February (a little too late really) I loosely followed the guidance in the above film and put two nesting tubes into the pond.  They're only a few yards apart so the hope was to present two different options to a duck, rather than hoping to get two broods off at once.

I knew I had very little chance of any uptake this year, as it is said they mostly use the tubes after ignoring them for a whole season.  So I've just stuck to my plan which has been to just keep feeding the pond, get the local wild ducks in and out and keep fingers crossed for spring time!  I'll be so happy if a duck uses one and manages to bring a brood off.  I think that would be more fulfilling than a lot of my days out shooting.

A few things I learned from making my Mk.1 duck tubes, bearing in mind I'm a skinflint and so is the shoot captain, so buying materials specifically for the job was out of the question:

• Barley straw works just as well, if not better than hay (wheat straw would be a no-no).  I used barley straw as I had some readily available at the time.  The tubes are still well packed and intact; they look good enough for use this coming spring.
• I only had some 1.5" chicken wire available, it was a fairly light gauge of wire too, and as a result the tubes have gone a little bit flat because the mesh isn't stiff enough.  I'd use smaller size hole, heavier gauge mesh next time like the stuff often used as rabbit netting on the bottom of fences, which should hold up better.
• I've used wooden fence posts.  The tubes are mounted on some pine boards (ex-shelving from my old house!) and I screwed two pieces of board edge-on to the underside, then put long screws through them into the post.  This isn't the most secure fixing, one of the tubes has gone a bit wonky but they're holding up.  I'd definitely put a bit more engineering onto this aspect of it next time as you don't want the whole thing falling into the water with a duck and her brood inside!
•  
• Siting the tubes was a bit of a tough job because the bottom of the pond is so silty I was sinking in rather a lot!  When you need to get out there with the post, post rammer, assembled duck tube and battery drill it's a bit precarious.

Overall, not a bad first attempt.  Time will tell.

You only know if you give it a go, so my advice is to get stuck in and do something proactive to encourage the ducks.  At the very least you'll learn things along the way!

[marsh man]

Good post Jim ....... THANKS

[Lloyd90]

That’s a fantastic post Jim of how it should be done and a good story of how poor some released ducks can be. 
 

I have known of several shoots and seen some where they also can not get released ducks to fly... one even was trying to walk/feed the birds up a hill before flushing. 
 

As with lots of things, create and promote a fantastic environment and they will come. 
 

I am envious of that amazing looking pond!! 

[figgy]

You have to fly your ducks before the season. They take some training and need to learn to fly and build up fitness if released and reared.

 

[Jim Neal]

On 02/12/2020 at 23:02, marsh man said:

Good post Jim ....... THANKS

 

On 02/12/2020 at 23:27, Lloyd90 said:

That’s a fantastic post Jim of how it should be done and a good story of how poor some released ducks can be. 
 

I have known of several shoots and seen some where they also can not get released ducks to fly... one even was trying to walk/feed the birds up a hill before flushing. 
 

As with lots of things, create and promote a fantastic environment and they will come. 
 

I am envious of that amazing looking pond!! 

Thanks Gents.  I probably ramble on a bit too much

I'm considering this as a slow burning learning curve really.  I'll be gutted if nothing happens with the nesting tubes next spring but will soldier on anyway.  You never learn nothing, even if you fail.

4 hours ago, figgy said:

You have to fly your ducks before the season. They take some training and need to learn to fly and build up fitness if released and reared.

Completely agree.  It was a fair few years back, the reared ducks weren't my project so I didn't really have much to do with it - and I had precisely jack poop knowledge of ducks at the time so I was just checking the feeders weren't empty every few days!  I think there was a fear of losing the ducks by flying them pre-season, seems as we don't have another suitable pond in the vicinity.  If we did it again I think I'd flag them off early morning and walk back the waddlers who didn't make it far, then take it from there.  I can't see that happening.  I took the pen down because it was getting in the way of how I need it to work for the pheasants, which have been a roaring success story in that drive compared to the ducks!

[London Best]

It is my experience that if anything will get shooting banned, it will be reared duck.

[jall25]

Not seen your pond obviously but does it have an island ?

 

Ducks love the security and shelter one provides

[Jim Neal]

38 minutes ago, London Best said:

It is my experience that if anything will get shooting banned, it will be reared duck.

I'd put at least three other things on the list above that.  Firmly at number one would be another Michael Ryan-esque incident.

Any more new footage of JCBs burying pheasant carcasses - allegedly breasted out or not - would be another hard-to-remove nail in the coffin.

Also, all the bickering and handbag swinging that goes on within the shooting community, attacking our own individuals and organisations.  We are probably our own collective worst enemy.

[figgy]

Unless ducks are wild or very good flyers, they have always been bag fillers on shoots I've attended when the pheasant and partridges haven't played fair. 

[London Best]

2 minutes ago, figgy said:

Unless ducks are wild or very good flyers, they have always been bag fillers on shoots I've attended when the pheasant and partridges haven't played fair. 

If I ever go on a shoot which does a duck drive then I personally will not shoot them.

[Stephen-H]

1 hour ago, London Best said:

If I ever go on a shoot which does a duck drive then I personally will not shoot them.

agreed i used to have a couple booked days each year in Yorkshire & the first drive was a duck drive a lot of guns got trigger happy & before you know it half the bag had been achieved 

[Pushandpull]

Reared duck are about the lowest form of canned hunting.