Ice and duck hunting

[Quackhead]

I have noticed over the past week that a lot of hunters just break the ice up and throw there decoys in the chunks. Also, people break the ice up and throw the chunks onto the ice around their hole. I was wondering who has input on the method that works best for them. I've noticed that it absolutely seems to work best if you just break a line in the ice around whatever you want to be your hole and try to slide the biggest chunks possible under the ice still in contact. This does not put very much broken pieces out on the ice and looks much more natural. If there is to much broken piecies on the ice it seems to flare birds. Whenever I make a big whole and slide the pieces I seem to do very well. This also seems to make it take longer for it to refreeze. It may take a little longer but is well worth it.

I am posting this to help others that might not be fairing so well in the past week. Not to seem to know it all.

The more open water and the more decoys the better. In my opinion.

[duckintheblood]

couldn't agree with you more. if you just break the ice and leave it as is it really doesn't look natural, you have got to get those big ice chunks out of there, those neoprean gloves are a live saver for getting the ice out of there. there is another little tip, get your self a pair of those neoprean gloves they keep your hands dry and warm while dealing with the ice, nobody likes their hands to be frozen while setting up decoys. keep your fingers crossed the weatherman says there is going to be some weather pushing in here soon.

[Special K]

I will also throw in a leaf rake when I know I will be breaking ice. It works pretty good for cleaning up the hole of all those ice floaties....

[fishncliff]

I was wishin i had a rake after the 5th trip to clear ice .The guys in mudhen 5 just broke the ice and didnt clear it. the birds flared off of them all day.

I cleared a 30x10 hole. shoved the big stuff under the edges, threw the little stuff toward the bank or slid it onto the ice.

It is also important to have your dekes on the lee side of the wind, where the wind can blow the ice away from them.

[billc_sbio]

Where I was yesterday (out on S.I. WMA) the guys before me had broken up a pretty nice hole in the spot, however they'd thrown all these chunks of ice all over the place...up on top!

It looked like a real mess, though it didn't seen to particularly flare any ducks off my dekes.

However, my preferred way to do it is to take my duck seat, which is a monopod design, and use it to punch a series of holes in the ice, similar to serrations on a postage stamp.

I can then break a "pattern" on a big sheet of ice (like a large hole), out of the ice and push it UNDER the rest of the ice!

If the piece is too big, I can make an "X" serration in it and push the 4 pieces under the ice individually!

I was hunting a "smallish" pond and I was only using 8 decoys and a Spinner. This worked just great as on Thurs. I had HUNDREDS of ducks in/around my spread at under 30 yards using this setup (mostly Sprig & Spoonies, some Teal and a few Widgies & Mallards).

One thing I noticed this icy period where I was, is that the ducks were just as content to land ON the ice as in the hole!

In fact I watched many land IN the hole then climb back up on the ice and stand around the dekes ON the ice.

It sure made me wish I had about 8-10 of the Enticers!

Maybe instead of breaking a big hole, just put the spinner out there with a couple of small groups of Enticers standing ON the ice?!!

I'd bet that would work as well as a big batch of floaters!