Fishing Fever
guide Jason Boser

Duck Hunting in the Sand Lake Area

by fishing guide Jason Boser

Sand Lake is in the heart of good duck country. To the North we have Rice Lake, to the west we have Squaw Lake both are wild rice factories. Then to the south we have Bowstring Lake and the Rice on the Bowstring River. This makes for some excellent hunting opportunities. Wild rice is the main food for the ducks up here and is the key to good hunting.

We have a couple different ways to hunt. One way is to find out where the ducks are resting. This is a matter of driving around and finding the ducks during the day. When you find a bunch of ducks you can go out in the morning before sunrise, throw out a dozen decoys and you are set. The ducks in this situation are used to being there and will just come in as long as no one has disturbed them. You usually do not need to call these ducks or have a big spread of decoys, you just need to be in the general location where they have been hanging out.

Anther way we hunt is to get right in the rice, find a clump of taller reeds and an opening in the rice. Again we don’t use a lot of decoys maybe a dozen or so throw them out randomly in and on the edge of the opening so the passing ducks can see them. We do try and call more in this situation to get the ducks looking.

The biggest challenge in this hunting is concealment, you do not want the ducks to see you at all. If you have anything standing out the ducks will flare before you can get them in range. When hunting the rice you will usually have to have a canoe and a trick we use to steady the canoe when you are in the reeds is to bring a couple 8-10 ft poles. We stick them in the muck as far as you can and tie burgee straps around the poles and the canoe and it steadies it right up.

So whichever way you hunt ducks you will have lots of opportunities in our area, from rice beds, rivers, beaver flowages, big lakes to little lakes we have it all.

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