You can be a seasoned hunter who specializes in duck hunting, but if you didn’t know that weather is really important when it comes down to duck hunting – you’ve been missing out!
Just the way you pay attention to the weather so you can know if you need an umbrella tomorrow or not – duck hunting forecast is real!
Needless to say, ducks have their favorite season and weather when they migrate but also when they stick around the food.
If you take bird behavior into consideration, this is something that could help you achieve consistent success throughout the hunting season no matter the day or weather.
Therefore, keep on reading to find out everything you need to know about duck’s behavior to various weather conditions. By the end of the article, you’ll know exactly how to be a step ahead!
Why Duck Hunting Forest Matters?
Most of us don’t like rain or snow, and just like humans – ducks have their preferred weather. Understanding how different weather conditions influence ducks will allow you to understand their behavior.
And once you understand duck’s behavior to various weather conditions such as the storm – you will know exactly how to prepare yourself for success.
Foul weather is known as hunter’s best blessing while on the other hand, sunny days are considered to be duck hunter’s wreck.
If you’re a hunter, bad weather conditions such as rain, storm, clouds, wind, or freezing shouldn’t stop you from hunting. And if you’re a hunter who never stops – no matter the weather, you’ll find yourself lucky as a duck hunter (if you haven’t already).
What’s the Best Weather for Duck Hunting?
So let’s go straight to the point – if the weather can dictate when your hunting success can increase, what is the ideal time you should be duck hunting?
The answer is simple. It’s during the storms, and even in cold weather. But why?
Low pressure in the air before and during the storms indicates that the rain is on the way. Storms are also very well known for the hard winds and they can even increase cloud cover.
This makes ducks stop feeding at night and instead, they start moving more early in the day, as well as late in the day.
Therefore, this weather is the best type of weather that gets ducks moving in a different pattern into “unknown”.
However, there are benefits for hunters as well. During the storms, there is no glare off the gun, upturned faces are harder to spot, and there are no shadows that could give you away.
This improves the hunter’s position and way of hunting, as well as the opportunity. Therefore, with a little bit of skill and luck – you will be able to get successful and in no time, you will find a storm and cold weather your friend.
When You Won’t Get Lucky?
It’s very well known that fair skies aren’t the ideal time for duck hunting. Not only these weather conditions are ideal for birds since it allows them to fly, dabble, and dive almost anywhere – but they’re also putting hunters into bad hunting conditions.
Even if you do your best to camouflage yourself, chances are you will get spotted a lot easier than in cold & cloudy weather. This is due to the better outline of shadows during sunny weather and even the slightest shadow will alert the ducks.
However, there’s something you should know. Even though hunting in this weather might be a lot harder – it’s worth to know that in sunny & warm weather, ducks have flight lanes established. This includes the fields they feed in and places where they raft.
Very skilled hunters might be able to pattern these movements and take it to their advantage.
Is Duck Hunting in Winter Worth it?
One thing every hunter wants to know – is freezing yourself in winter worth it? Storm and cold weather is one thing, but camouflaging yourself and concealing your movements in winter can be a tough job.
While freezing weather is still a good time to hunt ducks since lower temperatures will burn more calories and birds will have to feed twice a day. No one likes to freeze in extremely cold weather – but if you give it a try and you stay consistent, it can be really rewarding.
But what about the snow?
Unfortunately, snow might get the ducks’ route a bit unpredictable. A little bit of snow won’t make a big of a deal, however, a couple of inches will make ducks have to migrate and find their groceries somewhere else.
If you’ve been tracking their moving pattern, it might be easier to know where ducks might migrate in snow conditions. However, if you don’t – you might be hunting in blind and you could end up spending hours in the cold without a lot of luck.
We still believe that going out in the freezing weather and snow can be successful since you might find yourself in the right place at the right time without even knowing it.
Fog might slow things down since fog will keep ducks down. However, ducks that are en route rely on the friendly calls and that’s when duck calls and decoys could be of help. After all, duck hunting in the fog can be both an exciting and frustrating time so you have to make up your decision wisely.
Conclusion
Paying attention to the weather is important and that’s just one of the reasons why we call it a duck hunting forecast.
It’s important to understand how weather affects the bird’s behavior and with a little bit of skill and observation – you will be able to predict where and how ducks migrate in different weather conditions.
This will help you prepare for the upcoming season better and hopefully, will lead to a lot more success or at least a lot more opportunities.
No matter if you’re a beginner or a seasoned hunter, taking time to understand the relation between weather and ducks’ behavior will pay off!
