Iuka's Roger Stegall shows off a mixed bag of quackers taken from Pickwick Lake. Photo courtesy of Larry Self.

Successfully hunting ducks in north Mississippi requires that you find the birds and get away from the other hunters. You also need to be sure that you reach the places that the ducks want to go to before they arrive.

Needless to say, weather plays a major role in the choice of sites made by the ducks. But unlike the case in many other areas, you need rising water levels here, as well as cold weather, for productive duck hunting. High water floods otherwise dry feeding areas, bringing the ducks in shallow, where they're easier to take.

The best way to figure out these conditions and the tactics needed to cope with them is talk with folks who have experience in this type hunting -- so let's look at the techniques of some of north Mississippi's best watermen.

GO TO COLLEGE ON DUCKS
There are probably some members of the Ole Miss student body who picked the university for reasons other than its outstanding educational opportunities and its party scene. One of those motives could have been the proximity of top-quality duck hunting, such that it's possible to bag a limit of birds and still make it to that 9:00 a.m. class.

That's certainly part of the appeal of the University of Mississippi for Oxford's Alex Littlejohn, who's pursuing a wildlife management degree, and, when not in classes full-time, working on projects with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, planting food plots and conducting quail and turkey brood surveys in the summer. And during the winter, he splits his time between classrooms and hunting ducks on Sardis Lake.

"If you spend time scouting, you usually can find a really nice honeyhole where you can take ducks, when the birds start coming down the flyway," he said.

Sardis Lake, which covers parts of three counties -- Marshall, Lafayette and Panola -- is primarily open water with some sloughs off the main body. When Littlejohn plans a morning hunt, he assumes that the ducks have fed in the agricultural fields all night, so he searches for spots where the ducks are resting.

"You have to remember that Oxford's a college town," he explained. "So every student who's ever thought about duck hunting will be on Sardis Lake in the mornings. The first thing I look for is a region where I can get away from the other hunters, and where a small creek comes out into the lake and forms a little slough. I call these places 'breakaways.'

"Most of the college students will be running up and down the open water, setting up their blinds and decoys where they can see ducks coming in, and the ducks can see them. I search for little pockets that everyone else overlooks."

Of course, the scenario of the birds being in resting areas may not always hold true in the mornings. But even if the ducks are feeding, the sloughs can still be worthwhile places to check out. "When the water rises, the ducks move into the breakaways," Littlejohn said, "because there will be food in those sloughs that's not been available to the ducks until the water has started to rise."

Speaking of marsh vegetation in the buckwheat family, he added, "I look for smartweed sloughs. Sardis also floods into some nearby agricultural fields. These fields and the sloughs are normally dry during the summer months."

Littlejohn attributes his success with the waterfowl of Sardis Lake to his intimate knowledge of the reservoir, which he gained that insight by spending a lot of time scouting.

FIND THE DUCKS
To pinpoint the best locations for finding ducks, first buy a topographic map of the reservoir and study it. Where are the shallow sloughs that are likely to be dry when the fall drawdown occurs on the impoundment? Once you have an idea of those locations, some pre-hunt scouting, via a 4-wheeler on the shore or by boat on the water, can solidify your knowledge of which fingers off the main lake do go dry. Those are the places you want to have your blind set up on when the season opens and water is rising on Sardis.

"Most of the hunters who come to Sardis get in their boats and ride the lake, looking for big cypress breaks, because everyone knows that's where the ducks are supposed to be," Littlejohn pointed out.