Missouri wetlands waterfowl hunting

Waterfowl Hunts

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Missouri Sub-Basins

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Spring & Snow Goose

Nothing new in this article to Mississippi Flyway hunters. This page recognizes we draw member/hunters from the east and west coast that may not be familiar with the Mississippi Flyway.

Why Missouri Waterfowl

Missouri State and its wetlands are at the convergence of three major watersheds: the Missouri in blue, upper Mississippi in brown and Ohio in orange.

missouri waterfowl hunting

Wetlands and Flyways

Our prime duck and goose hunts are technically on the Mississippi Flyway, however our area greatly benefits from the Central Flyway. This benefit is from our location at the convergence of the large river systems concentrating migrating ducks and geese.

Missouri draws from the upper reaches of Canada from central to eastern Great Lakes regions. Passing south through our area to the costal winter over areas in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama during the coldest winters and layover in our area during the warm winters that have been more common this past 5 to 8 seasons. In either case Missouri waterfowl hunting is different based on temperature as the early season on cold winters finds an early peak migration in late November and late season on the warm winters has a later peak migration in late December.

Missouri Duck Hunt

MAHA private wetlands are within historic micro flyways of the Mississippi Flyway within Missouri. We develop water level manageable wetlands for duck attracting habitat with nearby crop fields for goose sets. We have been in the duck business since the 1960's and our chest wader access sturdy blinds, millet and smart weed planted wetlands with open water in the right place means as good of duck potential as to be found anywhere. With the recent warm winters the ducks have laid over in our area far longer than typical and much to the detriment of the Arkansas hunters.

Missouri waterfowl wetlands

Mallards are the preferred regular season duck with a mix of canvas backs, pintails, woodys and others to add variety.

Selection

Within the three states MAHA leases private land Missouri is by far the best as it has the right habitat on the large scale required to attract hundreds of thousands of ducks and geese. We manage six wetlands, one dry land near a power plant cooling lake that has open water through any winter and over a thousand watershed lakes and farm ponds spread on the 200,000+ acres of private land we lease.

MAHA Hunts

Hard core local duck and goose hunters that hunt mostly the weekends and occasional late afternoons will bag 250 to 500 ducks in a season across a range of wetlands. Non-residents that travel our way do so for the obvious reason of more ducks in our area than theirs. However, what they most comment on besides the abundance of ducks is the fact they have a place to hunt every time and any time they wish to hunt. And, it is not just one place to hunt, but several places.

The adventure continues through a variety of blinds on several different types of wetlands rather than the doldrums of the same duck blind each time out. While duck blind reservations are for the entire day rarely are our duck hunters there that long.

Missouri Wetlands Snapshot

Within this waterfowl website we offer many snapshots of our blinds and wetlands during the season at appropriate water level. We also offer these pictures showing how we get to the waterfowl attracting during the season wetlands. This picture is of just one blind and one timbered pothole on a wetlands of several blinds on open water and flooded through timber showing some summer time work.

The photo above was taken in June after our first failed planting. When the flood water receded we re-planted this pool by hand since it was too muddy for even a four wheeler. At the time it seemed like a shot in the dark, but conditions worked in our favor to establish a good stand of millet to feed the ducks this fall.

Since this picture was take the millet headed out just fine, the slough flooded, the blinds were covered with fresh camouflaging rippy grass and then the wait was on for weather and migration.

Another photo taken from the same wetland of a pot hole that was planted to millet. We have the inflow gate open to take water on the first opportunity possible. This area flooded after teal and before the regular waterfowl season precluding our having to pump. This pot hole is between the creek that many from other state describe as a river and a short walk through the trees to the main wetlands and near an open water blind area. This is typical of our waterfowl areas to have segregated areas.

Missouri Waterfowl Details

The following pages accessible through the links below will take this Missouri waterfowl discussion into greater depth and give all as good a review of our wetlands and waterfowl hunts as is possible to do so in print. After reviewing these sections feel free to give us a call to discuss any particular aspect of our self guided waterfowl hunter Association.

Wetlands Map showing Missouri locations

Mississippi Flyway in Missouri

Missouri Major Sub-Basins and Micro Flyways

Wetlands construction and maintenance 1 2 3

Planning a hunt

About us and our duck hunting background