A Beginner’s Guide to Duck Hunting in Montana

Basic advice on one of the state’s least crowded hunting opportunities. By Dave Carty

This story is featured in Montana Outdoors
September–October 2008

Montana is famous as a big game state. But there are ducks here everywhere you look, from teal nesting in the Bitterroot Valley to migrating pintails at Freezout Lake to late-season mallards winging across the eastern prairies.

You wouldn’t know that from most Montana hunting books and articles. The focus is almost exclusively on elk, pronghorn, deer, and other big game—with the occasional mention of upland birds. But waterfowling has its own allure. At the risk of bringing even more participants into one of the least crowded hunting opportunities in Montana, I’m prepared to tell you why it’s so appealing and how to get started.

Montana is filled with waterfowling spots. Thanks to the state’s stream access law, virtually all of the Yellowstone, Missouri, and other large rivers are open to waterfowl hunting along the bank up to the high-water mark. That’s a lot of water and a lot of potential hunting. (Note that the law does not give access to surrounding private land, even if a duck you shoot falls there. To retrieve a bird on private land, or to access a river across private land, you need the landowner’s permission.)

Many reservoirs and waterfowl refuges provide decent hunting, though they draw crowds on opening weekend. Freezout Lake, Canyon Ferry Reservoir, and Bowdoin, Medicine Lake, and Benton Lake national wildlife refuges are among the better known. Dozens of smaller reservoirs and lakes and countless streams and wetlands also provide excellent shooting. Scouting is critical. Talk to friends, study maps, and drive around to locate promising places on your own.

Finding spots that crowds ignore is worth the extra legwork. I spent years hunting a channel I discovered on the Missouri River and had some of the best shooting of my life there. With the surge of new residents, the spot is no longer the secret it used to be. But plenty of others are still out there. Even though I’ve been duck hunting in Montana for more than two decades, I’m still always out scouting for new spots.

Once you find a place to hunt, the next step is to decide where to set your decoy spread. That means figuring out where flying ducks will want to land. Nothing attracts ducks better than decoys placed in a spot the birds have been using and want to revisit. That requires scouting the water beforehand to see where ducks land, feed, and loaf. Effective decoy placement can make even a mediocre caller like me
look good.

Set decoys in the water several yards out and to the side of your shoreline blind. That way, ducks will land directly in front of you. Keep in mind that ducks land into the wind and will usually come in a bit short of your decoys.

Learning to call ducks isn’t difficult, though mastering it takes years. Buy a few of the many instructional CDs and DVDs available. They are produced by people who quack at more ducks in a month than I’ll see in my lifetime. Don’t get caught up in the endless nuances of calling, at least not at first. Although you may eventually learn two dozen or more different calling sequences, a beginner needs to know only the basic hail call and the single quack.

Knowing when to call is more important than learning many calls. Hit distant birds with a loud hail call until they turn. Crank down the volume while they’re swinging overhead, and then coax them in with single quacks or soft hail calls whenever they swing away. When the ducks turn again and appear to be coming in, stop calling and pick up your shotgun.

Using a duck call is not essential. In fact, you can often lure more ducks by just being quiet, as long as you’ve put your decoys in a place the birds want to be. This is especially true on heavily hunted public marshes, where every hunter and his brother are tooting away.

As for dogs, you don’t always need one for duck hunting. Young and nimble waterfowlers who hunt over small bodies of water can usually retrieve their own ducks. But on big lakes and rivers, dogs are essential. Also, dogs add immeasurably to the quality of any duck hunt. I’ve come to appreciate that even more since my springer spaniel died 20 years ago and most of my duck hunting since has been without canine companionship. Getting a dog is a large commitment in time and money, but a good Lab, springer, or “versatile” retriever (such as a griffon or German wirehair) will find birds you thought you’d lost—and a few you never knew you hit. You’ll have far more fun even on slow days and will forever bore friends with tales of your dog’s heroics afield. Better still, your canine buddy will never criticize your shooting or tire of your lame excuses for missing. Try that with your other hunting pals.

Dave Carty, of Bozeman, is a longtime contributor to Montana Outdoors.

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