Do you hunt tilled fields?

I live in the middle of corn country and I can tell you for certain around me that birds do feed in tilled fields.
that said,they generally visit those fields later in the day towards dark as there isnt much cover for them to hide in like fields that havent been turned under.

when I hunt tilled fields I walk the fence lines if there are any as the birds will be sitting in the grass/brush waiting to feed.
I will also hunt any terraces in those fields,it is amazing how many birds will hold up in even the least amount of cover on a terrace.

Iowaboy1 wrote:

I live in the middle of corn country and I can tell you for certain around me that birds do feed in tilled fields.
that said,they generally visit those fields later in the day towards dark as there isnt much cover for them to hide in like fields that havent been turned under.

when I hunt tilled fields I walk the fence lines if there are any as the birds will be sitting in the grass/brush waiting to feed.
I will also hunt any terraces in those fields,it is amazing how many birds will hold up in even the least amount of cover on a terrace.

What would be your reason for walking the fence line to set up your decoy spread? Are you not using decoys and trying to sneak in on ducks or geese that are already feeding in a field?

We hunt tilled fields when we have to. They till them under asap in my area as well.
The biggest difference for me is the lack of cover. Layout blinds are harder to hide, we often will go old school and leave the blinds home. Dig a small depression just big enough for your body (a few inches goes a long ways) and cover yourself with stubble.
It’s far from comfortable compared to a layout blind but you’re hidden. Late season geese have seen a lot of decoy spreads by now and usually don’t mess around.

dang it Dave !! quit questioning my reasons !!! LOL
I honestly had a brain fart with this one,I was watching a pheasant walk across the field just as I was reading this topic and completely missed the fact that this thread was about waterfowl !! durrr!!

however,from my observations at least around home here the ducks and geese do feed in the plowed fields later in the day compared to fields that havent been plowed.
is that reason due to cover?? I dont know but have witnessed it many times over the years.
if you want an idea of how close I live to some of these fields,my east yard is seventy feet wide with a crop field next to it and thats just for starters.

Iowaboy1 wrote:

dang it Dave !! quit questioning my reasons !!! LOL
I honestly had a brain fart with this one,I was watching a pheasant walk across the field just as I was reading this topic and completely missed the fact that this thread was about waterfowl !! durrr!!

I figured as much but I was trying to be nice about it.

In my area birds take a liking to a tilled field versus not. I’ve noticed this over the years too, they actually hide better in a tilled field. I was watching a field the other week, it was half picked, the other half was half plowed, so a quarter of the field was plowed under, birds were landing and feeding in the plowed stuff, not 1 bird landed in just the picked corn. Talking a field with close to 300 birds in it.
They suck for us to hide in, but I’ll take a plowed field anyday to hunt.

Paint your blinds flat black or dark brown don’t waste your time with mud…always easier to go lighter in a field that isn’t dug vs darker in a turned field.. use powerhunters vs a blind w a frame…lower profile easier to hide and also can dig them in…hunt alot of disced corn…beans on ths other hand hate hunting them all together the hide is a struggle and its a real one.

No cover, decoys don’t pop. I wouldn’t bother with a tilled field unless I KNEW the birds were using it. Birds have a very hard time finding your spread. Tilled fields for sure hold birds, but they’re difficult to hunt.

In my experience, at this time of year (late fall/early winter) it seems geese actually prefer chisel plowed corn fields over fields that have not been plowed. I think it must be easier for the geese to find the waste corn in a chisel plowed field. Just last Sunday my buddy and I hunted a chisel plowed field that the geese were using. It was actually easy to look down and see a lot of waste core laying on the dirt. I’m not saying that geese don’t use unplowed picked core fields but they seem to prefer plowed ones.

In any case, it seems like successful field hunting for geese comes down to scouting. Once most of the corn is picked, the geese have many square miles of fields so you need to find the ones they’re using and try to get permission to hunt it.

I agree that getting geese to decoy can be difficult, especially when the weather is nice. We flag so the geese have an easier time seeing us. Last Sunday we could not get the big flocks to decoy but luckily we had a couple of pairs drop in and also a flock of about six swing low and close so we managed to get some birds. I’m not sure the geese could pick us out or they just didn’t like our spread. We ended up setting a magnum shell over our legs.

Good Luck,
Boone

We had success hunting a tilled field this year but obviously it has to be one that the birds are feeding in. All we did was buy burlap, laid down, and used our shell bags for head rests. Then we loaded the decoys around us where were lying. Ended up work well.

chisel plowed, disked, or ripped fields aren’t hard to hide in. We all bought cheaper used layouts and painted them, but you can mud your blind about as black as paint if needed. Lightly stubble to match the field, and set up 45 degrees upwind of the decoys so the geese aren’t looking right at you on approach.

Canadas seem to always prefer the worked fields over the stubble corn. Mallards will hit disked corn, but well worked black fields they tend to avoid unless it’s really cloudy or wet.

Some tricks to being more visible in those fields with your spread is add some canada wind socks, add 3-6 snows, and increase the amount of white on some of your decoys. Older shells work great for this trick.