Id say hes right about ducks and wrong about the geese.

Ive kicked ducks several times walking into an area just to have them return once the decoys are set and all gets quite, but on the other hand Ive never had geese return unless its hours later.

Id also agree on hunting until noon and not before dark on moonless nights. Lots of times ducks and geese feed by moonlight and return to the roost after they get full. But on moonless nights they tend to feed early and head back to the roost at sundown

Just my observations

 

Have done it with wood ducks and it will work once somewhat but they catch on. Not all of them come back, and have to do it early season before they pair up. They come back so they can leave with the same fligjt they usually feed with. But late season the pairs are pretty good at sticking together.. And they don't really care about the other birds. I'm speaking for wood ducks. Just my opinion.

 

Shooting birds off the roost is a no no. With ducks we have flushed the birds many times in the morning and set up and shot small groups of birds coming back in. We would kill our birds and get out. We can do it a number of days in a row leaving the roost alone at night and flushing the birds in the morning before setting up. However, it only takes one person to go in and shoot it in the evening to spoil it all. We have had that happen a number of times, also.

For a number of years I lived on a property where hundreds of geese roosted every night. In the mornings I would let the birds fly off on their own. Then I would set up. There were lots of geese in the area and other birds would work my decoys. One time we had some people get in and shoot the birds off the roost in the first week of December. We never had the geese return to the roost until after the season was closed in January. We would normally hunt this spot from September till January. One roost shoot and it was baked for the rest of the season.

 

When hunting ducks if you bump them in the dark they will come back. Rivers or streams are the best to hunt this way. Set up a couple decoys and find cover. Dont try a full setup cause the few ducks that you did jump are the only ones that will be coming back. Geese on the other hand will not come back , sometime for weeks and you never shot at them.

 

That’s such bull, I went out this morning, kicked the geese up off there roast, and about light they were headed straight back.

 

When hunting ducks if you bump them in the dark they will come back.

No, they never come back. The ducks you see afterwards are different ducks; ducks someone else has bumped off a pond 10 miles away....... :thumbsup:

 

When hunting ducks if you bump them in the dark they will come back.

No, they never come back. The ducks you see afterwards are different ducks; ducks someone else has bumped off a pond 10 miles away....... :thumbsup:

I cant tell if this is sarcastic or not...but sometimes you may be right. But more often then not, its the same birds in my experience. Sometimes you can watch em hit the horizon and come back to ya. Happens to me every now and then

 

Truth presented in a sarcastic manner. :yes:

Birds you kick off a half hour before shoot time cannot be seen for more than a few yards, certainly not "to the horizon". You're talking about an hour before sunrise. It's dark an hour before sunrise.

What I was getting at is that no one has any way of knowing if the flock coming in right now is the same flock they saw in the area half an hour ago. :thumbsup:

 

Truth presented in a sarcastic manner. :yes:

Birds you kick off a half hour before shoot time cannot be seen for more than a few yards, certainly not "to the horizon". You're talking about an hour before sunrise. It's dark an hour before sunrise.

What I was getting at is that no one has any way of knowing if the flock coming in right now is the same flock they saw in the area half an hour ago. :thumbsup:

Good point, well presented...I guess I strayed from the original topic, being before light. I was talking about afternoon hunts kicking birds off the water, only to have them return. You caught me.

I completely agree there's no way to know about birds kicked up in the morning.

 

Where we have been going in Manitoba for the past 12 years, it does not work. When we run them off the roost, they never come back in any numbers. Our best luck comes from potholes that are vacant in the morning.

 

Roost hunting is the easiest way to eliminate the birds from an area. Kicking them up, always felt it was a 50/50 shot. Sometimes you can knock a few hundred off an area, they will filter back in, Sometimes not. If i was a duck I would let you know for sure.

 

Bump ducks off a pond easy, NO truck headlights. They'll come back. Found a 50 yard by 75 yard LOADED. We eased in, no headlamps even. The ducks had been feeding in a cut cornfield within eyesight. We bumped them off threw out 6 decoys. 1st sunlight they were swarming the corn. Back they came. It was a great hunt, we got out fast. By the time we got the truck we watched 500+ return to the pond. Sadly enough that night had a blizzard come in, Could not get within hiking distance of the pond before the ducks left.
Bump geese off they do not come back.

 

It depends on a lot of factors. So I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.

Consider this scenario. You bump ducks in the morning. Chances are, those ducks use that as their night roost. They may also use it as a day roost, or they have another spot they day roost. They also will have a place they go to feed. So, you bump them early, they just go off to the feed spot. You wait, they come back to roost. But if they had a different roost for day time, you may never know. You may just figure you scared them off and they never came back.

Regardless.... This much hypothetical thinking must mean it's the off season.

 

I have had birds come back lots of times both ducks and geese. In my experience early season ducks will come back if kicked up without gunfire, there seems to be a dead zone in between the weekend after opening day untill the first big groups of migrators where ducks once spooked won't come back. As the season goes on into the winter and migrators are pouring in they seems to always come back when kicked off. As far as geese, they seem less likely to come back in the original numbers, I have had it happen once for sure when I kicked up about 50 Canada's and one was callord, a flock of about 10 came back including the collard goose about 2 hours later, I have seen eagles and coyotes scare up flocks of birds, once the eagle or coyote left the birds would start coming back about a half hour later whether it was over water or in a field. I have also seen mallards fly about a mile off make a big circle and come right back after being kicked off in the afternoon. I think a lot of it has to do with how many birds are in your area, what kind of landscape your area has and how far north you are, the weather has also played a large role in birds coming back in my experience, they seem more likely to come back if the weather is nasty because they want to get back to where the were out of the weather. There is so many variables to this subject it's next to impossible to answer but only be able to offer my past experience. I hope some of what I said may be able to help you in some way.

 

well.....we shoot a big public lake....often in month leading up to season we will see up to 40 birds loafing around area we shoot....some years I WILL HAVE A GRAIN FEEDER GOING,other years nothing.
after 20 years shooting same spot it has become clear there is no right answer.....
we always set up decoys the night before opening, we always seem to go home with between 10-30 birds for whole weekend reguardless of if 1 or 5 people shooting. we poke a lot of holes in the sky.
first light will see the first birds swing around and hopefully we will drop 1 or 5..then it is a slow trickle all day with some doubles,the odd single and occasional 5-10 mobs..... we get birds when others chase them off wherever they are hiding,or Ive got bored and zoomed around with boat to see if any woundies on water.
one thing we have noticed,the years we have had grain feeding going on heavily we get a good evening shoot,we may only get 1-2-5 birds but it really is wonderful to be out with mates in evening light waiting and hoping for another bird or three to come in.
Sunday morning we get few birds coming in,but usually pick up another 5-6 and its just relaxed.