Duck food to grow in a stock tank

lariat

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Minuteman
Feb 11, 2018
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I have a couple of stock tanks I want to plant food to help attract ducks for duck season. I looked into duckweed but it appears to be too invasive for a small to medium sized body of water. What do you guys suggest?
 
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I have a couple of stock tanks I want to plant food to help attract ducks for duck season. I looked into duckweed but it appears to be too invasive for a small to medium sized body of water. What do you guys suggest?

Damn, I wish I could tell you what I use...but it is natural. :LOL: I think that I have a decent amount of sago or some other form of pondweed. My diving ducks like the ringnecks seem to be feeding on that when I shoot them. Some of it looks like bladderwort, which from reading looks like it is enjoyed by mergansers...and I get a lot of mergansers, so that may be a correct identification. I also have a lot of lillys. I get a ton of wood ducks in the creeks below the house...but I never see them in my stock ponds.

I do all of my duck hunting, pond hopping them after I put out hay for the morning. They don't seem to mind me driving by at 50-100 yards in a tractor.

Best of luck man.
 
Damn, I wish I could tell you what I use...but it is natural. :LOL: I think that I have a decent amount of sago or some other form of pondweed. My diving ducks like the ringnecks seem to be feeding on that when I shoot them. Some of it looks like bladderwort, which from reading looks like it is enjoyed by mergansers...and I get a lot of mergansers, so that may be a correct identification. I also have a lot of lillys. I get a ton of wood ducks in the creeks below the house...but I never see them in my stock ponds.

I do all of my duck hunting, pond hopping them after I put out hay for the morning. They don't seem to mind me driving by at 50-100 yards in a tractor.

Best of luck man.
Yeah that's what I'm looking for, natural plants that don't go totally rogue. I got enough problems with cheat and johnson grass, no need for another headache. I do the same thing, jumping them off of stock tanks. But I got some tanks that are mostly mud that need to be fixed up right to hold them. I'll look those up and see what I can get done. Need to restock with perch and crappie once the plants are established too - damn turtles.
 
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This is going to sound weird. Contact your state wildlife biologist(s).

That said, birds are weirdly robotic in their migration (especially waterfowl). They’ll go to and from the same ponds year after year. You could do everything and they might just ignore it…
 
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This is going to sound weird. Contact your state wildlife biologist(s).

That said, birds are weirdly robotic in their migration (especially waterfowl). They’ll go to and from the same ponds year after year. You could do everything and they might just ignore it…

The local F&G office should have biologists on staff or know some good resources.

If there's a local(ish) university, that's worth checking out as well. Should have more than a few biologists and botanists that would be willing to help out with a simple request. They may also have resources already online that would be helpful.
 
Widgeon Grass, find it, paper sack and yard rake and keep it damp, transfer to smaller paper sacks and submerge them in shallow water and place a rock on the sack, let nature take its course.

It's not for everyone, most would be better served with barnyard grass, chufa, millets or even hybrid milo or sorghums, easier to control. Latter if you have wild turkeys around.