Duck Hunting
Duck Hunting the entire season from multiple private wetlands, duck blinds, lay out boat and wade-in areas. There is additional crop field acreage on a variety of different waters for dry sets or combination dry/wet sets.
No one duck hunter is limited to just one spot or time. The Association duck hunting is throughout the entire season. That is more duck hunting than most will hunt. So too do we have more places to hunt than most will have time to hunt. The value is flexibility in time and location. All may hunt when they have time. All may go to where the ducks are rather than just pick a spot and hope they show up.
Missouri's Migratory Bird Hunting Is the Association's Best Duck Hunting
Have a look at aerials of the wetlands and water level pictures of blinds, wade-in and layout boat areas. Click the wetlands name label to review that wetlands.
Association Missouri Private Wetlands and Blinds Duck Hunting
Several wetlands such as this are almost impossible to plant Milo, corn or beans so we drain as much as possible and spread Japanese Millet over the mud flats from the back of a 4-wheeler or from a hand seeder as a last resort.
The millet combined with volunteer smart weed are a great food source for the ducks and geese in the fall. This wetlands photo was taken after moving water from a holding reservoir before the regular duck season.
Duck hunting at your own style be it large or small decoy spreads, a lot or little calling. Each may employ his own duck hunting skills, techniques and equipment as he sees fit to achieve as much success as possible. We provide the private wetlands resource, a telephone reservation system that reserves blinds and wade-in areas and the do it yourself hunter does the rest.
Association private wetlands precludes public lands type competitiveness of skybusting, stealing flights or confusion over which duck which dog retrieved. Our hunts are as early in the morning as elsewhere, however once setup, the hunts are far more leisurely allowing all to enjoy the day.
Also, do not confuse our private wetlands approach with liberated duck club hunts. All hunts are strictly migratory waterfowl. Compliance to all state and federal migratory bird regulations is required.
All of our wetlands that we plant, flood and post blinds are in Missouri under the Mississippi Flyway. In Kansas under the Central Flyway we have watershed lakes and farm pond duck hunts without blinds. The Kansas hunts are commonly wet and dry sets. Our Missouri wetlands hunts are predominately wet sets.
Our best duck hunting is in Missouri over large natural and manmade water structure. It is simply that Missouri has more river bottom ground with a mix of standing and moving water both manmade and natural. Far more than that of our Kansas or Iowa private land.
Kansas Duck Hunting Is Off Managed Wetlands
Farm ponds on crop land located between large state operated waterfowl areas and the rivers in recent seasons have had some of the better duck hunts early and mid season. Late season duck hunters flex to field sets away from pressured state managed waterfowl wetlands.
Where To Duck Hunt
Missouri has the bulk of the Lower Missouri River Basin. That part that extends into Kansas and Iowa also has in smaller areas very good duck hunting. While Missouri is well covered in wetlands, it is the pond and watershed lakes in Kansas that are hunted. These pictures are of a Kansas watershed lake. Such spots offer hundreds rather than thousands of ducks. These ducks are less likely to be call or decoy shy. Their singular advantage is getting away from the more heavily pressured larger waterfowl areas.
A flock of mallards rafted in open water surrounded with ice. A blue sky background really magnifies the green heads on mallard drakes. The whistle of their wings as they come in is a sound that can only be appreciated by those that have heard it.
More Than Ducks
Early season teal above one of our wetlands, we had our camera, not our guns.
Our teal and dove season are minority use seasons. Those waterfowl hunters with dogs are more likely to dove, teal and pheasant hunt whenever the ducks are not flying.
Multi interest duck hunters find that their retriever will work as a pheasant flushing dog the best within the tall prairie grass regions. This thick grass has influence over the flushing dog to work closer to the hunter and make for a more enjoyable hunt. Those with dogs will find beyond pheasant, quail, teal, dove and goose to that Kansas allows fall turkey hunting with dogs. No one has the energy to hunt all these species. It is a matter of opportunity. The chance every season or so to try something new to enjoy the day on the land and the dog.
For those that travel our way to waterfowl only hunt they often select a wetlands based on state waterfowl reports. Going to where the ducks are.
Value Assessment
We Have Been In The Duck Hunting Business A Long Time
One of our duck blinds being covered in natural camouflage before flooding the wetlands, in this case a crop field.
This Association has operated since 1965. We have refined self guided duck hunting for the average hunter over many years. All will find a greater private land resource through this Association than any other option that exists. A bold statement that will be proven in the pages of this web site.
The most frequently heard comment from traveling hunters is that in their home state they are limited to a smaller number of hunt location choices. They more often than not are returning to the same spot and water each time out.
These hunters find the many options we offer to be a reward in itself being able to be in a different duck blind or on a different wetlands type each hunt. This is reflected in the common first conversation focused on finding "..a duck hunting spot...".
Once finding the Association has options the conversation then changes to "...which duck hunting spot..." This idea of daily choice of blinds, wade-in, layout, field and wet set duck hunting soon shows itself more than most will hunt in a season. Limitations become that of time and equipment not location. This leads to why pay for more than what any hunter can hunt. The answer is that no one is paying to hunt it all. Our approach is price fixed to reflect what hunters actually hunt, not all the hunting that is available.
Compare our annual hunt fee to annual levee repairs, pumping, blind maintenance costs and it will quickly show the individual Association hunter fee does not cover any single duck hunting spot. It is through the collective hunter approach we gain more duck hunting places than could be possible by any other means. It also reflects that hunters often do not hunt as much as they believe they do so. Our blind occupation rate shows this well each season.
On blinds and occupation they are just one asset. Many duck hunters use layout boats and wade-in due to by mid-season ducks are well educated on blinds. Part of this mid-season effect includes layover. With Missouri having much water and grain crops most any winter of only partial freezes keeps waterfowl anchored from southern movement. With the snow/freeze line in northern Missouri much of the season there is opportunity for ducks to get smart about blinds. These blind smart ducks make for the layout boat, wade-in and field set hunts.
The same is so for those that go field sets or combination wet/dry sets on farm ponds and watershed lakes. These spots outside of the government waterfowl areas see the ducks that fly out and high from the government wetlands to surrounding fields to feed.
The bottom line is not to singular assess duck hunting availability on the number of blinds the Association maintains. The Association duck hunting opportunity is much greater than just the blind shooting pools.
Mississippi Flyway Hunter
We do have another category amongst duck hunting non-resident Association hunters and they are the Mississippi Flyway hunter. Or the duck hunter that follows the migration. This group is largely composed of first northern state hunters. These hunters after duck hunting their home state take on the average two trips a season to a southern region based on what wetlands they have experience with, where the peak of the migration has progressed to or when they plan to take vacation time.
A second group and a more recent development has been the southern Mississippi Flyway hunter traveling north to extend his season. The reasoning has been the light winters have seen the ducks stay in Missouri. The feedback has further been that migration peaks and season dates are better aligned in Missouri than the gulf states.
The kind of waterfowl hunting results we all would like to have each time out. While our wetlands and blinds will satisfy all who hunt them even the best wetlands we should all agree depend on migration and weather. A simple statement that is not news to any duck hunter. It is more our effort not to oversell the waterfowl hunting we have. It is great when the ducks are in. It is good all the time as it is noncompetitive. And, all may hunt any day they want to schedule.
By the way, the two oldest in this group, both well past AARP eligibility, have the most ducks.
| About US Costs Rules & Agreement |
Kansas Pheasant Hunting Kansas Duck Hunting |
Iowa Pheasant Hunting | Missouri Duck Hunting Missouri Goose Hunting |
| Deer | Turkey | Duck | Goose | Pheasant | Quail | Index |  |
| Mid-America Hunting Association, Since 1965 Email, day/evening 913 773 8110 |
|||||||