INSANE Field Duck Hunt in SIDEWAYS RAIN | DIY Waterfowl Trip - Day 4

The past two days had been the best field duck hunts I had ever experienced, the fact that they were on public land still blows my mind. During the last two days, we were letting this private field build and by our last day there were a few thousand mallards feeding in this cornfield. With rain and high winds in the forecast, we knew we were in for a treat. We were also aware that it was going to be miserable... The reality is if you are not willing to hunt in conditions like this you are not a waterfowler and you will miss out on a lot of the best hunts.

What made this hunt hard other than being soaking wet and freezing is the fact that the field was wet from overnight rain. To avoid putting tire ruts in the field we had to carry in our layouts and decoy spread in a few hundred yards. The other thing that was hard is the rain and cloud cover made it really dark. Even a half-hour after shooting light and a thousand ducks in our decoys later, we still couldn't clearly see the drakes. We realized we wouldn't ever have good light and it was time to start shooting. We did our best to shoot an all-drake limit but there were a few hen casualties.

What made this hunt was the scouting we did on the first day. As usual, the first day of our trip was a scouting-type hunt and we really quickly figured out where the birds were headed. We jumped in the trucks and followed them, luckily for us a good chunk of them were hitting a public field. This gave us two days of crushing the field ducks on public while we let another private field build-up for our day four hunt. Make sure you check out all the videos from this trip:

Day 1: Ducks and Geese on the River -    • Duck and Goose Hunting the River | DIY Wat...  
Day 2: EPIC Field Hunt on Public -    • EPIC Field Duck Hunt on PUBLIC LAND | DIY ...  
Day 3: Field Ducks and BONUS Snow Goose Rainout -    • Field Duck Hunt on Public Land with Snow G...  
Day 4: Mallard beatdown in the sideways rain -    • INSANE Field Duck Hunt in SIDEWAYS RAIN | ...  

This was our second trip to Idaho and wouldn't have been possible without our old buddy Josh. We had originally planned on coming the week before but we pushed it back a week to time well with an incoming storm...it's amazing how much of a difference 5 days can make. They went from having a few ducks around to thousands!

Duck Hunting the West is hard to beat. Especially in the late season when the migration is in full effect. Full plume Mallards poor in from Canada. When they arrive in their new destination, they are hungry and hit the protein source fields hard. All you have to do is scout to figure out where they're going and set up where they want to be...it sounds simple and sometimes it is.

The opportunity to freelance duck hunt fields, especially public land fields is pretty limited here in the USA so when you find an opportunity like this you need to make sure to take full advantage....this is public land duck hunting at its finest!

This freelance duck hunting trip Idaho was a solid end to Duck Hunting 2023 and one I will never forget.

For more Duck Hunting Videos check out my Holtz Outdoors playlist:
   • DUCK HUNTING HIGHLIGHT REEL - COLORADO 201...  

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