calling wood ducks?

[goblueM]

this may be a silly question, but I've never specifically hunted woodies. Can you call them in? The only vocalization I've heard is the whistling/scared noise they make when they are taking off.

Can you call them in with that same call? Was pondering picking up some decoys and hitting a creek near me that I've seen em in

[Quackaddict9]

I usually have wood ducks coming in mallard decoys with a few quacks here and there, mostly unexpected because they fly so low near the grass/cattails and land right in the decoys in open water. There are wood duck calls so you could look into them, not sure if they are worth the money though. Good luck!

[Cold_blood]

if you have seen them in the creek don't bother buying decoys just hunt it with out decoys because woodies are normally the first to rise and leave the roost so i just sit and wait at a spot i've seen them fly out of or into....or the more challenging and fun option is to slowly walk the creek headin up stream and jump shoot them its a blast and if you kick them up but don't shoot don't worry most of the time they'll only go a short ways before landing again

[HunterLee]

I have hunted them on the red lake river. They bombed right into the mallard dekes. I just called to them like mallards, although it didn't take much convincing.

[benbosh]

calls really dont make much of a difference for wood ducks. most of the time they come in on their own

[tracker x-2]

I have a wood duck call that just produces a whistle and i have had about as much luck with it as a mallard call.

[airdriver]

Spend the money and get a wood duck call. They can be combined with drake mallard calls, teal etc. It's just a whistle. But, if you research calling them, a lot of places say you can call them off the water or trees right into your dekes. At first I never believed it, but I have done it myself. It really does work! Plus it is a very easy call, it will take you about 5 minutes to get it down. You can get one for less the 15 bucks.

[Gordie]

I like to use a woodduck call when I stalking a creek I will make a couple calls on a blind corner and then listen for a response then I know that I need to keep a real watchful eye for them to rise. and I also use it in conjunction with my mallard calls

[Meyer8043]

Check this out, it is a short really great video on calling woodies

[goblueM]

thank you SO much for the responses everybody! I'm excited to get out and try some. Figuring on setting up some dekes, doing a bit of calling, then paddling downstream and jump shooting along the way. I'll post some pics if I'm successful!

[johnsd16]

In my experience woodies don't really respond all that much to decoys or calls. With that said I have had them bomb right in and land between the blind and dekes, or in the decoys many times. Woodies will go where they want to be and often fly around a body of water familiar to them and act like the decoys aren't even there. Once the migration hits it seems like they completely ignore you, or drop in without circling.

I do usually set out a few woodie decoys off to the side of my mallards and when I started doing that the woodies consistantly landed with the woodie decoys. GHG now makes those pro-grade woodies that look great.

Calling I use a regular dog whistle, and blow it gently enough that the cork ball doesn't begin to rattle around. If you listen closely to relaxed woodies on the water they make a very high pitched quieter sound than the one they make when flushed. Kind of mouse sqeek-ish. Hard to explain. I've had good luck getting them to swim into and even through the dekes right up to the woodie decoys making that call after they land down the shore or outside the spread.

I had an old video put out by DU that had good footage of woodies on the water making that not often heard sound.

[jigginjim]

I have had my best luck using a pintail whisle, tweet, tweeeet tweet. the middle is a bit higher pitched than the others. very short peeps