Novice decoy hunting on public fields?

[alwayssafe]

Hi everyone,

This will be my first season hunting waterfowl and my first season hunting anything at all in Washington (moved to the Seattle area from New England a few weeks ago).  After a couple seasons of not seeing any legal deer, I've decided to switch to hunting something with (I hope) a slightly higher success rate.

I'm thinking about laying out a small decoy spread on public land.  It seems like the state offers a few options for this.  I'm thinking in particular of the Crescent Lake wildlife area and maybe something further south like the Davis Creek area.  It seems like each of these might offer a novice a decent shot at a bird.  I think some corn will be left standing at Crescent Lake, which I assume would make it easier for me to stay hidden.

Any opinions on this plan from someone with more experience?  Is it reasonable to think that someone with no waterfowl experience (and no dog or boat) can have success with this method?  Any suggestions for alternate strategies?  I don't currently own any decoys, so any advice on minimizing initial investment is also appreciated.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[D-Rock425]

Watch out for pheasant hunters.

[CAMPMEAT]

Have you checked on out-of-state hunting licenses ? Expensive.....

[WSU]

Crescent lake can be good depending on weather.  I would look elsewhere until the weather gets nasty.

The best advise I can give you is to go and watch the birds.  You want to put your decoys where they want to be.  Go find somewhere ducks are already present and hunt there.  If you don't do that, you will have hard time being successful.

[CP]

Crescent Lake is a pheasant release area.  You may only enter the area from 8:00am to 4:00pm.  Hunters wearing blaze orange will be walking around and amongst your decoy spread if it is the field.  If you are fully camouflaged and hiding in the same foliage as the pheasants you can expect that the pheasant hunters might shoot in your direction, not the safest situation to put yourself in.

My advice is to find somewhere else to hunt where they do not release pheasants.

[hntrspud]

Crescent lake can be good depending on weather.  I would look elsewhere until the weather gets nasty.

The best advise I can give you is to go and watch the birds.  You want to put your decoys where they want to be.  Go find somewhere ducks are already present and hunt there.  If you don't do that, you will have hard time being successful.

 
 If you dont wait till later you will be watching alot of birds go by. Have you checked out some of the Quality hunt areas up north? Some of those offer field hunting oppurtunities.

[Spuddieselwwu]

I would go to Skagit and hunt headquarters instead of mess w/ Crescent lake.  Have you thought about Cherry Valley?

http://wdfw.wa.gov/lands/wildlife_areas/skagit/Headquarters%20(Skagit)/

[BiggLuke]

Best advice for a new guy... Get a good set of Chest waders. Even if you hunt fields... they are ducks afterall, and eventually you will need to get wet.
With a good set of chest waders, you can hunt from sept. to jan. and hunt any body of water up to you belly. That covers a lot of places.
Plus you can go jump shooting.

[fowl smacker]

I am not familiar with the areas you're talking about, but will give you some general field hunting tips.  Get a layout blind, it will allow you to hide in fields, most have stubble straps, fill every strap with the terrain that you will be hunting in...example, if your hunting corn stubble, fill the straps with corn stubble.  Get decent decoys, sometimes you don't have to have 8 dozen, you can still kill birds over a dozen quality dekes.  Learn the basic calls and learn to read the birds (this will come with time), sometimes no calling is best.  Avoid moving your head around to see the birds, if you can see them, they can see you better.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, scout!  If you are seeing birds in a certain place in a field in the evening, 95% of the time they will be heading back there in the morning.
Good luck.

[D-Rock425]

http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,85400.0.html. watch this thread.

[Brad Harshman]

Best advice for a new guy... Get a good set of Chest waders. Even if you hunt fields... they are ducks afterall, and eventually you will need to get wet.
With a good set of chest waders, you can hunt from sept. to jan. and hunt any body of water up to you belly. That covers a lot of places.
Plus you can go jump shooting.

 
Let add to this.  Be sure to buy waders with the boot built in.  Avoid the stocking fit waders unless you hunt in the southern States.  Boot waders will keep you and your feet 10x warmer.  ITS THE ONLY WAY TO HUNT OUR COLD WINTERS. Trust me.

[alwayssafe]

Thanks, everyone.  Good advice all around. 

Good points about staying away from pheasant release sites - hadn't considered that.  Maybe I'll do some more research on Skagit county areas.

[aaronoto]

You can be quite successful with that method. I started with only a dozen mallard deeks and waders and I killed quite a few birds.

Do yourself a huge favor though, scout the locations you want to hunt and mark the blinds/ponds on a GPS.  Until you've hunted an area quite a bit it will be very difficult to find your way in the dark to a blind that you walked into during daylight.  This has saved my butt on a couple occasions.  I still do it because if someone has the spot I want, I'm not walking aimlessly trying to stumble upon another spot.

Oh, and have a back up plan!  Public land is crowded. Know where you want to go, know where you'll head if option #1 isn't available, and have a last resort available just in case #1 and #2 don't pan out.

[JJD]

I am not familiar with the areas you're talking about, but will give you some general field hunting tips.  Get a layout blind, it will allow you to hide in fields, most have stubble straps, fill every strap with the terrain that you will be hunting in...example, if your hunting corn stubble, fill the straps with corn stubble.  Get decent decoys, sometimes you don't have to have 8 dozen, you can still kill birds over a dozen quality dekes.  Learn the basic calls and learn to read the birds (this will come with time), sometimes no calling is best.  Avoid moving your head around to see the birds, if you can see them, they can see you better.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, scout!  If you are seeing birds in a certain place in a field in the evening, 95% of the time they will be heading back there in the morning.
Good luck.

Add to that, get there early,  not talking 30 before shooting time.  Talkin getting there before someone else does, over there I suspect several hrs before shooting time.  Even where we hunt with no competition it takes at least 1.5 hrs to set up ground blnds, decoys, etc.  Pre stubble your blind if possible and then finish it out with stubble from the field you are hunting in, saves time.

[Heartsblood]

I would go to Skagit and hunt headquarters instead of mess w/ Crescent lake.  Have you thought about Cherry Valley?

http://wdfw.wa.gov/lands/wildlife_areas/skagit/Headquarters%20(Skagit)/

 Cherry Valley is a pheasant release site too...