What’s growing where you hunt?

[Mexican Squealer]

Something that could help us all is a thread showing the wild foods growing where you hunt. A clearer understanding of what is present obviously presents an opportunity to enhance its value as a food source for waterfowl. I scouted the duck food yesterday in about a 30 acre swamp on my club. The swamp is around 30 acres of moist soil that floods around December. The pictured food source is Rice Cutgrass and ducks love it. You can see seed starting to emerge. As they develop, they will become very similar to rice. The birds will also dig it up and eat the root systems. This is the best crop in the three years I’ve had the place. Find this and you will find the ducks (assuming we have ducks).

 

[spring]

Corn on one side of a little creek and milo on the other. I put a deer fence around it all from spring until October when we flood it. Works most years.

 

[ghadarits]

This is a small hole that I introduced a pinch of smartweed seed into about 8 years ago. This spot floods often and that’s why it’s brown and not green like you would expect.

 

[hrstille]

corn, beans, wheat, milo, barley & sunflowers

 

[Mexican Squealer]

Rice/jap

 

[flatsmaster]

We have corn surrounded by timber in Mississippi and not a great pic but 20 acre lake in Florida full of hydrilla

 

[Duckbuster82]

Hydrilla, coontail, duckweed, red root, char grass, smartweed, Pennsylvania pond weed and many other natural grasses where they have not sprayed or released carp. I don’t know what most of the actual names of the grass are just names that I have been told. Grass and decaying debris also contain important invertebrates even in the impoundments they make up a large portion of the ducks diet. But scouting in the off season will tell you where grass is and can save time scouting during season.

 

[ghadarits]

Hydrilla, coontail, duckweed, red root, char grass, smartweed, Pennsylvania pond weed and many other natural grasses where they have not sprayed or released carp. I don’t know what most of the actual names of the grass are just names that I have been told. Grass and decaying debris also contain important invertebrates even in the inpoundments they make up a large portion of the ducks diet. But scouting in the off season will tell you where grass is and can save time scouting during season.

There are a lot of natural food sources in most wetlands if you know what you're looking at luckily for us humans the waterfowl already know what to look for. I've never had a place that I could plant a row crop consistently so have never had much luck doing that. I have had a lot of luck promoting whatever is naturally growing already and its worked well enough to keep me doing it and somewhat successful here in Georgia. We are in Georgia after all and if you've ever seen what goes on in the major flyways compared to ours you might wonder why we bother at all.