the last few years, my time waterfowling has dwindled to just about none. I used to go as often as i could when my local WMA was open all day (fields). never had a place of my own to hunt. the last three or four years, i'd only go once or twice a year when i got drain.
this summer a friend of mine and I got the opportunity to rent 160 acres in the delta. it is mostly crp with 12-20 ft oaks on it. completely surrounded by bean fields that are noting but mud flats now. down the middle of one of the blocks of crp, there is a low spot that is grown up in old woods- pecan, oaks, etc. there is a drainage ditch on the south side of the section and the east side of the section.
this summer, when we went to look at it, we could tell the strip of woods held some water, but didn't know how much. also, it looked really think with underbrush an the canopy grew together. with leaves on the trees, it did not seem like there were any openings in the canopy to let ducks come in.
we knew that when there were big rains, the water had to drain somewhere out of this "bottom", otherwise, the bean fields to the north would hold water too. we just couldn't find where the water drained wihtout bush hogging the ditch bank.I mainly wanted the property to deer hunt. my buddy wanted it to see if we could get ducks in it. we got the landowner to give us the lease for 5 years.
unfortunately, my buddy died this summer. not long after he died, i had someone bush hog the spoil bank on the edge of the big drainage ditch on the south side so i could plant food plots. low and behold, i found the spot the woods drains into the drainage ditch.
closer to the treeline, the drain area looks to be about 6-8 foot wide where it comes out of the woods. i think a big piece of visqueen sandwiched between 2 piles of sandbags 8-10 bags wide, 4-5 bags high will block the drain up after a heavy rain.
I did not want to bag it up without first seeing how heavy rains would affect the woods and the neighboring bean fields. (last thing i want is a farmer pi$$ed off i backed water into his fields.)
for the last few weeks, ive been deer hunting in the strip of old woods and there was no water anywhere. that was until yesterday. yesterday, it rained hard and steady for about 3 hours after my morning hunt. i dont know how many inches. i struck out for my afternoon hunt around 2:00 right after the rain. the bean field was almost completely flooded. there is a high spot running down the edge between the bean field and my crp. so i walked down the high spot and then crossed through the woods, which did not have any standing water to walk through.
by the time i got off the stand after dark, i had been sloughed in. there was shin to knee deep water 50-60 yards wide the entire length of the bottom. i decided walk around the water by walking west to a gas pipeline and around the bottom and back to the trucks. turns out, the water backed up across the pipeline, so i still had to walk in water over my boots to get back to the truck. turns out, the bean field on the north side of my place drains to the south (my north line) hits the high spot and drains west until it gets to the pipeline. at the pipeline, it turns the corner and goes east/southeast, into my bottom, which fills up the lowest areas as it flows southeast.
walking out it looked like the woods were more open than i first thought and its possible there are openings in the canopy for birds to drop in. now i'm wondering, if it hasn't had water all season, what's the likelihood ducks will use the small flooded bottom as long as water stays in it?
its probably too late to do anything this season, but next fall i plan to bag in the drain and see what pans out.
discuss.
