Hunting wrp

[Faithful Retrievers]

Anyone have there places in wrp? Other than not a lot of cover what's your thoughts on producing birds?

[litlhitch]

I hunted a good bit of WRP when I was in school up in IL. Would have had some excellent hunts on them if they were not public land, and as you said..had a little more cover to hide in. We hunted this particular place almost every day just because we knew we could kill our pintails.

I am not completely familiar with the rules of WRP (I know you are allowed to only disk/plant a certain % of the acreage) but I helped a biologist broadcast some millet on mudflats of this particular WRP and it looked amazing and got good duck use. If I'm not mistaken, you could broadcast millet on the entire WRP.

We never tried it because it was too far to haul a boat to the WRP we hunted, but we had MOmarsh and 4-rivers layout boats that we were going to camo up with some of that millet and lay out on the edge of the open water/vegetation. The ducks would always land in the open water (40+ yards from the best cover). I bet that would have worked good though.

I would definately be familiar with the WRP contract. I hunted near a WRP that was about 90% planted in corn and heard they were getting in some pretty serious trouble. I dont think they are getting to hunt it this year (but they got to hunt it last year when it was all corn and you couldnt beat the ducks out of there) because they broke the WRP contract. Not sure who polices these WRP easements though? NRCS I would guess? Doubt they have alot of time to be going and looking at all the WRPs.

If I had a place, I probably wouldnt put it in WRP just because I would like to have the option to plant a 'hot' food and disk up the field every few years. Just my .02

[DanP]

5% of a WRP easement can be classified as a "food plot", meaning you can plant corn, milo, beans, or whatever. You can designate part or whole impoundments as "food plots" but it must be done on the front in and included in the contract. You can manage the impoundments for moist soil veg, but it takes a lot of work. You are allowed to disk, bushhog, etc in these areas and as lilhitch said you can plant millet all day long.

[JaMak84]

I can't think of the girl’s name, but a graduate student from state did some research on wrp easements last year. I don't know where you could find the complete results, but I know the sunflower county NRCS office has a poster summary of the research. The results pretty much confirmed what we've been telling landowners since the beginning. The more you manage the property, the more ducks you'll have. WRP is not a "if you build it they will come" program. That being said, the same rule applies to WRP as any other real-estate investment. Location, location, location.

[Wingman]

You mean ducks won't eat balloonvine and goldenrod?

Hummm...

I went to a meeting last year where NRCS encouraged landowners to manage WRP for moist soil plants. Most of the WRP I see either is grown up in junk or is a deep water area with cattail around the edge and moss in the water. Virtually 0 food for the birds.

[Faithful Retrievers]

You mean ducks won't eat balloonvine and goldenrod?

Hummm...

I went to a meeting last year where NRCS encouraged landowners to manage WRP for moist soil plants. Most of the WRP I see either is grown up in junk or is a deep water area with cattail around the edge and moss in the water. Virtually 0 food for the birds.

Wingman that was my concern was what drew the birds to place without food. What are they planting in the moist soil management?

[BamaK9]

Drive through Missouri sometime if you want to see some productive WRP tracts. The ones I've been on manage the he!! out of it for wild millets and smartweed etc....VERY productive. You can also plant trees and whatnot for cover so that should not be an issue....

[duckter]

As a biologist told me, it is important to bushhog the native grass a few times each summer and to disk 1/2 of it each year and rotate. Plenty of protein will come with the native grass along with the aquatic invertebrates. Ducks love this stuff and aside from extreme lengthy weather conditions, they should favor this in lieu of the carbs provided by corn, beans, etc.

[JaMak84]

Wingman that was my concern was what drew the birds to place without food. What are they planting in the moist soil management?

That's what's so great about MSM, you don't have to plant a thing! The seedbed is already there, all you have to do is manage it. With proper drawdowns, and soil disturbance you can build some of the best natural food sources for under $20 an acre. Barnyard, sprangletop, smartweed, and various other moist soil plant seeds can lay dormant in the seedbed for up to 20 years. All you have to do is create the right conditions for them to germinate.

[nipntuck]

Faithful, great topic. Management of wrp impoundments is much more complicated than one would think. Several reasons for this:
1. Leaving the water on encourages beavers and nutria to inhabit and they wreak havoc on the levee
2. Trumpet vine and red vine take over and flourish in spite of the standing water
3. Unless you live on the property or have a caretaker, removing boards one at a time becomes a cumbersome task
4. By definition, most of the impoundments are low lying ground and thus difficult to work up early enough in the year to get anything to grow for that season if you are disturbing the
soil
5. You take a chance on flooding out what ever you plant if you get an untimely rain
6. The NRCS added topography to a lot of the impoundments that require evaporation to dry and that can be late in the year and make the ground hard to work up and even harder to plant unless it is a broadcast variety
7. Hard to hide in and hunt when the wrp is in its early years
8. Bermuda can take over
I could list some more but you get the point. The NRCS people are by and large very interested in seeing this program succeed and some are willing to listen to suggestions by wrp land owners. We have adopted an aggressive spraying program and have some areas that look really promising with natural grasses and we are trying golden millet in 2 areas. Last year we had a tremendous number of ducks using our impoundments that had flooded where sunflowers were left from the dove hunt and some ares where we planted milo. Personally, I believe we should pull the water off after the ducks have left in the spring, disk everything we can as early as we can, and plant a variety of millets and let the grasses come back and fertilize all if the money can be justified. Planting corn, beans etc seems like a great idea but in the end, none of us have the time to properly cultivate it and most members get queasy when you look at the economics of planting row crops in swamp land. I would love to hear any other ideas members of this board have. Most of my education has been expensive and I would love to learn from others mistakes. Fortunately, we have a brake and we hunt there and try to let the ducks use our wrp as a feeding and resting area. It worked out last year where we hunted the wrp the last 3 or 4 days of the season and it sure gave our numbers a boost.

[Faithful Retrievers]

I would assume that it would take holding water no longer than you had to and allow you time to break the ground and apply whatever it is that you were going to put in the area. I then would guess that in a dry year you may not could get the water needed to fill the area although as most only floods about a foot it may not take as much water as you would think. Would you see better results by maybe rotating the areas that you flood each year if you had enough property. A guy was saying that alot of the green timber that you see manual being flooded won't hold up to the way as it was intended by getting a couple feet of water put in it every year. His theory was that before it flooded every year as mother nature had intended more under growth could live and that the trees will not hold up as long plus killing every sappling that has started to grow that year. After time what is there now will just deterioate from the months of standing water.

[eagle700]

... Last year we had a tremendous number of ducks using our impoundments that had flooded where sunflowers were left from the dove hunt and some ares where we planted milo.

Don't forget to be REAL careful if you duck hunt a sunflower area that was originally for doves and is now flooded for ducks. If you have knocked down ANY of the sunflower stalks, then the Federal guys can and will give you a ticket for hunting a baited area. I know some guys that this happened to a few years ago. The Feds claim was that if you bushhogged any portion of the sunflowers for the doves, then you have intentionally baited it for the ducks!

Sound right or fair -- NO. But I'm just passing along what went down. Be careful!!

[nipntuck]

... Last year we had a tremendous number of ducks using our impoundments that had flooded where sunflowers were left from the dove hunt and some ares where we planted milo.

Don't forget to be REAL careful if you duck hunt a sunflower area that was originally for doves and is now flooded for ducks. If you have knocked down ANY of the sunflower stalks, then the Federal guys can and will give you a ticket for hunting a baited area. I know some guys that this happened to a few years ago. The Feds claim was that if you bushhogged any portion of the sunflowers for the doves, then you have intentionally baited it for the ducks!

Sound right or fair -- NO. But I'm just passing along what went down. Be careful!!

I am aware of this but we didn't bushhog any of the sunflowers so would have been legal. Thanks for the tip though

[bigwater]

dusty,,

i use to hunt some wrp.... tried to do things right the first few years.. drw down and plant result was no or minimal ducks..

then just said "@#$%#" it and let it go.. it grew up had water on it year round.. of course it also ended up having more ducks on it than here ever before... then clays cousin showed up and ruined everything..

douch-bag...

something else to consider is.. you can do all the right things.. and manage it as best as it can be managed,, but theres still no guarntee that ducks will ever use the place...

if you find a place that is consistent.;. then fo sho hold onto it.. i'd dare say here in ms, theres far more wrp thats marginal duck hunting ground as compared to wrp thats the bomb..

wtf do i know.. i just shoot when they tell me,.,,

[msbigdawg1234]

No matter what ya got water food managed unmanaged if ya dont have the X they want it dont matter.... imprint,imprint, imprint,history,history ,history