This diagram is just of the 160 acres we have flooded the crops. This 1/4 section is surrounded by 1,700 acres of Missouri River Valley flatlands crop stubble fields with grassy levees well suited for quick set lay out blinds. This is a good relative example of blind spacing we employ on all of our wetlands. In this case the blinds are evenly distributed and that is made possible by the conformity of the flooded crop ground. Marsh, timber and slough wetlands do not allow for any such conformity and also have the advantage of trees separating most blinds as well as distance. 
Squaw Creek duck hunting is a tradition that has been passed on by generations of avid do it yourself duck hunters since the early 1900’s, but duck hunting Squaw Creek requires access to private land since the refuge is closed to hunting.
Because the mid-November duck concentrations on Squaw Creek frequently exceeds the 100,000 count, demand for a private duck lease is very high. Each year expensive duck blinds are advertised for lease, but the majority tends to be blinds that are unproductive with productive blinds nearby being used by the same individual or party advertising.
MAHA has leased private land for duck hunting around the Squaw Creek Refuge for close to 30 years, but the location of the leases have changed following the patterns of the ducks. Ten to twenty years ago the hot spot for private land duck hunting around Squaw Creek was adjacent to, north and west of the refuge.
In the 90’s, when the Bob Brown Conservation Area was developed, over 3,000 acres of wetland habitat was available for the ducks 5 miles southwest of Squaw Creek, which had an affect on the pattern of the ducks. MAHA took advantage of this opportunity by leasing a 1200-acre row crop ranch between Bob Brown and Squaw Creek and developed 90 acres of flooded crop stubble with 4 permanent blinds available to the members.
Unlike the majority of the duck leases around Squaw Creek, MAHA hunters are not limited to one expensive duck blind for the entire season. MAHA has thousands of acres nearby in Missouri and Iowa available for pheasant, quail, deer, turkey, goose hunting and fishing. 
The sheer numbers of birds are hard to describe as no one can imagine what 100,000 geese look like. That is no one that has not experienced Squaw Creek that is. | 
|
|
