This second part of our Manager's Playbook covers the last two seasons of the annual cycle. We'll walk through Fall’s pre-flood checklist, the all-important slow flood, and key strategies for Winter, including managing hunting pressure and dealing with ice.
Fall: The Grand Opening
Fall has arrived! The excitement is palpable because this is the moment you’ve been working toward all year. The native plants in your impoundment are mature and heavy with seed. Now, your job is to put out the welcome sign by tackling a few final preparations before strategically adding water just in time for the arrival of your migratory guests.
The Pre-Flood Checklist
The weeks before you start flooding are dedicated to brushing your hunting blinds, clearing any overgrown access paths, and making sure all your equipment is in working order. A little bit of prep work now ensures that once the birds arrive, you’re ready to enjoy the season without any last-minute scrambles.
The Main Event: The Slow Flood
Just as you performed a slow drawdown in the spring, you’ll now do the reverse: a slow flood. Timing is everything here: flooding too early can cause seeds to spoil or germinate prematurely; flooding too late means you’ll miss the first waves of migrating birds. To add a bit of complexity to your calculation, remember the fall migration is a rolling wave that moves from north to south, so your flooding schedule must be timed to your specific geography.
Northern Tier States (The First Rest Stops)
Managers in the northern half of the country are providing a critical refueling stop for the first waves of birds coming south from their Canadian breeding grounds.
- Along the Pacific Flyway, managers in places like Washington’s Columbia Basin will begin a shallow flood in early September for teal, with the main flood for mallards and pintails occurring in October.
- In the Central and Mississippi Flyways, the timing is similar. In the prairie pothole regions of the Dakotas or the wetlands of Minnesota, the goal is to be ready for the peak flights of late September and October, which are often pushed down by the first major Canadian cold fronts.
- This holds true on the Atlantic Flyway, where habitats in Upstate New York or New England must be ready by September and October to host migrating wood ducks, black ducks, and other early arrivals.
Southern Tier States (The Wintering Grounds)
In contrast, managers in southern wintering states are timing their flood for much later in the season. The bulk of the migration may not reach them until the northern ponds freeze over. Their priority is to provide a winter-long habitat for birds that will stay for months.
- In the Pacific Flyway, this means being ready for the massive congregations in California’s Central Valley. Here, flooding is timed to coincide with the arrival of huge flights of pintails and other birds, often starting in late October and November.
- Along the Mississippi and Central Flyways, managers in the famed flooded timber and rice fields of Arkansas and the coastal marshes of Louisiana will typically begin their main flood in November, aiming for peak conditions from December through February.
- On the Atlantic Flyway, the schedule is similar. From the Chesapeake Bay down through the Carolinas, the primary flooding occurs in November and December, providing critical habitat for wintering birds along the coast.
The Pace is Key
Again, slow is the name of the game. You’re not trying to fill the basin overnight. Start adding flash boards back into your water control structure one at a time, raising the water level by just a few inches each week.
Gradual flooding is crucial because it keeps the food sources fresh. Each week, you’re making a new crop available. This encourages birds to stay on your property for longer periods, as new feeding opportunities continually open up.
Winter: Maintenance and Observation
With a flooded impoundment full of birds, winter has arrived, and your attention naturally turns toward stewardship. For southern managers, this means keeping birds happy and content so they remain throughout the season. For northern managers, it’s a chess game to extend the season by maintaining an attractive resource until a hard freeze pushes the birds firmly south. In either scenario, the focus is on managing hunting pressure and dealing with ice.
Managing Hunting Pressure
Birders and wildlife specialists alike know that ducks are remarkably intelligent and quick to learn. In practical terms, this means that if a location feels consistently dangerous or even suspicious, they will abandon it. This is called “burning out” a spot. Your goal is to keep your impoundment a desirable sanctuary where birds feel safe returning, even while it’s hunted regularly.
Give Them a Rest
This is the simplest, but most important rule. Don’t hunt your impoundment every day. A good rule of thumb is to rest the area for 2 to 3 days for every day you hunt it.
Hunt Mornings Only
Whenever possible, hunt only in the morning, leaving the impoundment completely undisturbed in the afternoon. This allows birds to return to the area and use it as a safe roost in the evening, rather than seeking more promising long-term digs elsewhere.
Dealing with Ice
In Northern States where a season-long hard freeze is inevitable, it’s impractical to keep your entire impoundment ice-free. Still, it’s a great strategy to maintain a small hole of open water, providing a last resting spot for those ducks who prefer to be fashionably late to their winter habitat.
How do you benefit? Well, when the first hard freezes lock up all the shallow natural marshes, an impoundment with even a small hole of open water becomes a magnet for every duck left in the area. All you need to do is switch on an ice-eater or de-icer to extend the season by a week or two and create some phenomenal late-season opportunities before the deep winter forces the birds south for good.
In Southern States, where freezes are often brief, an ice eater is a fantastic tool for dominating the landscape during a cold snap. When a winter storm freezes all the other shallow ponds and flooded fields for a few days, the manager who can maintain a patch of open water will hold nearly all the birds in the area. The point is keeping birds on your impoundment, rather than watching them leave in search of open water elsewhere.
Ice Eaters are simple but effective: a submersible electrical motor with a propeller that’s placed on the bottom of the impoundment. Pushing warmer bottom water to the surface prevents ice from forming in a specific area. Even a small patch of open water is enough to hold a surprising number of birds, as it gives them a safe place to land and rest when every other shallow pond in the area is frozen solid.
Note from the Trenches: Powering Your De-Icer
An ice eater is a great tool, but it runs on electricity, and a super-long extension cord from the barn just isn’t going to cut it. You have two real options, and one is clearly better than the other.
The best solution, by far, is to run a permanent, buried electrical line out to your impoundment during the initial construction. Trenching in a dedicated line is an upfront cost, but it provides a reliable, quiet, and safe power source that will last for decades. It’s the professional approach.
Your other option is a portable generator. Now a generator will get the job done in a pinch, but it’ll be noisy, it’ll need constant refueling (always in the coldest, worst weather), and it’s still another piece of equipment to maintain. A generator is ok as a backup, but don’t make it your primary strategy.
