# Sticky  How do you hunt divers without busting the roost?



## widukntz

I would like to hunt out of my layout boat on some of the bigger water for divers, but I understand the protection we need to give the roosting area. Do you think if I was anchored out in the middle shooting divers it would cause a problem? I see most of the puddle ducks using the sheltered bays and if the water is big enough I don't feel it will push them out. And the divers are, well, divers. Usually too dumb to know they are even being shot at! Did I answer my own question or do you think different?


----------



## fishhawk175090

In a submarine.


----------



## Gillbilly

Good luck getting a straight answer.From what I have been told by locals and guys I know it wont be much of an issue, but being a NR its tough getting real input.Stick with shooting at divers and it should be fine.GO BUCKY!!! :beer: :beer:


----------



## R y a n

This is a great topic. I was thinking of asking the same question myself. With all the talk that goes on here about not busting the roost, there is a legitimate contingent of waterfowlers (myself included) who like to hunt divers on bigger water for a changeup once in awhile.

The problem isn't diver hunters as much as it is guys who setup on water for puddle ducks like mallards/pintails. The types of water most commonly setup on is different for divers vs. puddlers...

That being said, there is probably _only a few hundred lakes in ND _that would meet the criteria of diver habitat that you could successfully setup on with diver decoys for a "traditional" diver hunt. There are probably 5,000 roosting sloughs that the boat parade destroys each fall, that are combo style large sloughs that hold both puddlers and divers.

They are the ones that cause the most contention.

Like I mentioned in another post, *if you shoot on a given body of water and it causes all the birds to jump into the air and move, you've busted a roost.* You need to find water where it isn't so small that this happens. There really isn't too many places in ND where that is the case.

That being said, here's one way to figure out if you should hunt a given piece of water for divers.

Pick a body of water that looks like a potential diver lake. Sit and glass for a half hour. Observe what kinds of birds are sitting on that water and if they are mallards/pintails/teal or are they redheads, cans, bluebills, ruddys. If you see a pile of mallards sitting on some structure (point, shoreline, island, ice) and you see them all actively coming and going from that core location, that is a roost. Leave it alone.

<rant>
NOTE: Flat bottomed shallow sloughs where you have all kinds of different birds occasionally passing by *is not a diver lake*. If you are looking for justification to hunt those types of sloughs for "divers" you aren't truly diver hunting, but rather just water hunting and looking for an excuse.
</end of rant>

If however you glass a deeper water lake, see a bunch of small groups of divers sitting in rafts all over the place, _*and*_ it has big shoreline, waves, deep water etc, and you see few or no concentration of puddlers, it is likely a transition area or a diver location and would be an area to hunt divers in....

We have several places where that situation exists and I love sitting there waiting for the dive bombers to plow on by...

It would be important to note for me however, that we NEVER use a small boat or skiff when hunting divers in ND. Rather we simply locate a prominent point, structure etc... and throw out some decoys off the end of those with waders. If we hunt a truly big water like Devils Lake, we actually take the fishing boat out for deeper water decoy placement and bird retrieval when necessary. In fact that's another way we determine whether a body of water is big enough to diver hunt in.... could we launch our fishing boat on that water and not scare the lake up? If not.. the lake is too small to diver hunt with a watercraft.

Good Luck to you

Ryan


----------



## R y a n

Gillbilly said:


> Good luck getting a straight answer. From what I have been told by locals and guys I know it wont be much of an issue, but being a NR its tough getting real input.Stick with shooting at divers and it should be fine.GO BUCKY!!! :beer: :beer:


It's answers like this that give NR's a bad name. Just shoot roost waters and screw the rest of the guys trying to keep everyone in the game huh? Is that what you were implying? It's the "As long as I get MY piece of the pie for the days I'm in ND, everyone else can go get hosed as far I'm concerned.."mentality that causes everyone here to not give any advice, and resent your coming to the state. :******:

I believe my previous post was a straight answer with substantive input.

You are excused.

Ryan


----------



## hunt4P&amp;Y

Good post, Ryan.

I didn't even recognize you with the new pic!


----------



## nodakoutdoors.com

FYI



> Motorboats are legal for going to and from shooting grounds. Ducks, coots, mergansers, geese, and tundra swans may be taken from a floating craft, excluding a sinkbox, if such craft is beached or fastened within or tied immediately alongside any type of fixed hunting blind, or from such craft resting at anchor. It is illegal to shoot from a sunken device or any floating vessel on open water or to use or cause to be used any floating battery, electric, steam, gasoline, or other powered vessel in an attempt to take waterfowl. A motorboat, sailboat, or other craft may be used to pick up dead or injured birds.


http://gf.nd.gov/regulations/waterfowl/ ... l#aircraft


----------



## R y a n

hunt4P&Y said:


> Good post, Ryan.
> 
> I didn't even recognize you with the new pic!


Thanks! Some day I'm going to have one of those on the wall.... somehow.

I hope my above reply gives some insight into* how or IF *you should be using a boat on a given piece of water.

I think this might be a good sticky nominee for all the guys coming to visit the state.

Ryan


----------



## Gillbilly

Did not imply shooting roosts,he seemed to understand that is not a good thing.The post ahead of mine is the usual type of reply when any question about water hunting comes up.Your first post was to the point and well written but then for some reason you attck my post.It is my opinion and that of others that I have talked to that concentrating on divers in a layout boat in open water is not a sin.Yes I agree stay away from roost waters.Sorry for any misunderstanding.


----------



## water_swater

Divers dont usually fly the highest especially on water and they like to cut off points if you can find a point where there's divers on either side you should be in business for some great pass shooting. As a kid we used to do this on a slough by my house, on day we rolled a 10 man limit in like 30 minutes.


----------



## R y a n

I'll move this up as a sticky for a few weeks, so some visiting hunters have a chance to understand how to analyze if a given piece of water is a roost or not...

and whether they should be using watercraft on a piece of water..

:thumb:

Ryan


----------



## widukntz

Thanks for the info guys! My buddy is picking me up in 10 min. and we will be heading your way. I will take some avdise from here and I'm sure I  will enjoy the next 10 days even if I never see a duck! (Hope that doesn't happen!) Will report when we return, PROMISE...........................


----------



## ruger1

If you do bust a roost, where do they go? I'm curious about why all the NODAK guys get so worked up about it. You can't tell me the ducks fly 300 miles away if they are busted off the roost. They probably just go to the next little pot hole where they are not bothered. I guess coming from north central MN where all we hunt is water, I'm just not getting it.


----------



## just ducky

R y a n said:


> This is a great topic. I was thinking of asking the same question myself. With all the talk that goes on here about not busting the roost, there is a legitimate contingent of waterfowlers (myself included) who like to hunt divers on bigger water for a changeup once in awhile.
> 
> The problem isn't diver hunters as much as it is guys who setup on water for puddle ducks like mallards/pintails. The types of water most commonly setup on is different for divers vs. puddlers...
> 
> That being said, there is probably _only a few hundred lakes in ND _that would meet the criteria of diver habitat that you could successfully setup on with diver decoys for a "traditional" diver hunt. There are probably 5,000 roosting sloughs that the boat parade destroys each fall, that are combo style large sloughs that hold both puddlers and divers.
> 
> They are the ones that cause the most contention.
> 
> Like I mentioned in another post, *if you shoot on a given body of water and it causes all the birds to jump into the air and move, you've busted a roost.* You need to find water where it isn't so small that this happens. There really isn't too many places in ND where that is the case.
> 
> That being said, here's one way to figure out if you should hunt a given piece of water for divers.
> 
> Pick a body of water that looks like a potential diver lake. Sit and glass for a half hour. Observe what kinds of birds are sitting on that water and if they are mallards/pintails/teal or are they redheads, cans, bluebills, ruddys. If you see a pile of mallards sitting on some structure (point, shoreline, island, ice) and you see them all actively coming and going from that core location, that is a roost. Leave it alone.
> 
> <rant>
> NOTE: Flat bottomed shallow sloughs where you have all kinds of different birds occasionally passing by *is not a diver lake*. If you are looking for justification to hunt those types of sloughs for "divers" you aren't truly diver hunting, but rather just water hunting and looking for an excuse.
> </end of rant>
> 
> If however you glass a deeper water lake, see a bunch of small groups of divers sitting in rafts all over the place, _*and*_ it has big shoreline, waves, deep water etc, and you see few or no concentration of puddlers, it is likely a transition area or a diver location and would be an area to hunt divers in....
> 
> We have several places where that situation exists and I love sitting there waiting for the dive bombers to plow on by...
> 
> It would be important to note for me however, that we NEVER use a small boat or skiff when hunting divers in ND. Rather we simply locate a prominent point, structure etc... and throw out some decoys off the end of those with waders. If we hunt a truly big water like Devils Lake, we actually take the fishing boat out for deeper water decoy placement and bird retrieval when necessary. In fact that's another way we determine whether a body of water is big enough to diver hunt in.... could we launch our fishing boat on that water and not scare the lake up? If not.. the lake is too small to diver hunt with a watercraft.
> 
> Good Luck to you
> 
> Ryan


But what about a pothole that doesn't fit any of your criteria? I have one in particular that is large, maybe 500 to 750 acres in water, and has both shallow and deeper water. It consistently has both divers and puddlers on it, sometimes 5,000 to 10,000 birds at a time. I love this pothole for divers because there are several great points for setting up on. And when you do shoot, the birds go nowhere. In fact, often they don't even get up because they're a mile down the lake. Yes, we're probably educating some puddle ducks by hunting it. But we certainly aren't scaring them off the pothole.


----------



## R y a n

just ducky said:


> R y a n said:
> 
> 
> 
> This is a great topic. I was thinking of asking the same question myself. With all the talk that goes on here about not busting the roost, there is a legitimate contingent of waterfowlers (myself included) who like to hunt divers on bigger water for a changeup once in awhile.
> 
> The problem isn't diver hunters as much as it is guys who setup on water for puddle ducks like mallards/pintails. The types of water most commonly setup on is different for divers vs. puddlers...
> 
> That being said, there is probably _only a few hundred lakes in ND _that would meet the criteria of diver habitat that you could successfully setup on with diver decoys for a "traditional" diver hunt. There are probably 5,000 roosting sloughs that the boat parade destroys each fall, that are combo style large sloughs that hold both puddlers and divers.
> 
> They are the ones that cause the most contention.
> 
> Like I mentioned in another post, *if you shoot on a given body of water and it causes all the birds to jump into the air and move, you've busted a roost.* You need to find water where it isn't so small that this happens. There really isn't too many places in ND where that is the case.
> 
> That being said, here's one way to figure out if you should hunt a given piece of water for divers.
> 
> Pick a body of water that looks like a potential diver lake. Sit and glass for a half hour. Observe what kinds of birds are sitting on that water and if they are mallards/pintails/teal or are they redheads, cans, bluebills, ruddys. If you see a pile of mallards sitting on some structure (point, shoreline, island, ice) and you see them all actively coming and going from that core location, that is a roost. Leave it alone.
> 
> <rant>
> NOTE: Flat bottomed shallow sloughs where you have all kinds of different birds occasionally passing by *is not a diver lake*. If you are looking for justification to hunt those types of sloughs for "divers" you aren't truly diver hunting, but rather just water hunting and looking for an excuse.
> </end of rant>
> 
> If however you glass a deeper water lake, see a bunch of small groups of divers sitting in rafts all over the place, _*and*_ it has big shoreline, waves, deep water etc, and you see few or no concentration of puddlers, it is likely a transition area or a diver location and would be an area to hunt divers in....
> 
> We have several places where that situation exists and I love sitting there waiting for the dive bombers to plow on by...
> 
> It would be important to note for me however, that we NEVER use a small boat or skiff when hunting divers in ND. Rather we simply locate a prominent point, structure etc... and throw out some decoys off the end of those with waders. If we hunt a truly big water like Devils Lake, we actually take the fishing boat out for deeper water decoy placement and bird retrieval when necessary. In fact that's another way we determine whether a body of water is big enough to diver hunt in.... could we launch our fishing boat on that water and not scare the lake up? If not.. the lake is too small to diver hunt with a watercraft.
> 
> Good Luck to you
> 
> Ryan
> 
> 
> 
> But what about a pothole that doesn't fit any of your criteria? I have one in particular that is large, maybe 500 to 750 acres in water, and has both shallow and deeper water. It consistently has both divers and puddlers on it, sometimes 5,000 to 10,000 birds at a time. I love this pothole for divers because there are several great points for setting up on. And when you do shoot, the birds go nowhere. In fact, often they don't even get up because they're a mile down the lake. Yes, we're probably educating some puddle ducks by hunting it. But we certainly aren't scaring them off the pothole.
Click to expand...




R y a n said:


> They are the ones that cause the most contention.
> 
> Like I mentioned in another post, *if you shoot on a given body of water and it causes all the birds to jump into the air and move, you've busted a roost.* You need to find water where it isn't so small that this happens. There really isn't too many places in ND where that is the case.


I covered your answer.... in ND there are some that are both too.... the problem is guys dont leave thos places alone enough.... and they do affect both puddlers and divers... you can tell because you no longer find birds sitting near shore any longer compared to the beginning of the season.

Guys doing this are really hurting more than they realize or care to admit to... or they just don't care.

Ryan


----------



## ghostbuster

When i shot divers they are never there then suddely they appear


----------



## markauss1187

HERE WE GO!! 1)I'm from Ill 2)I've been to ND 3 times. Here is how we do it. Drive around until we find a pothole with 50 to 100 birds sitting on it, gather all gear walk down to said pothole, watch as birds get spooked and fly of, throw out dozen decoys, shoot birds when and if they come back. Usually three Illini hunters can get a limit, it seems like about half of the ducks return in small groups. I'm wondering if this is describes the mortal sin of "busing the roost". As a side I would just like to say in my opinion(been duck hunting since high school) ND has the best duck hunting in the U.S. you guys should try it here-duck clubs have totally screwed the average duck hunter, and public ground is a joke. It is nice to find a secluded spot where you can actually call ducks and have them come work the decoys without some jacka$$ doing his best to call them away or taking an impossible wide/tall shot because the ducks won't commit. Let the me know what you think about my methods but keep in mind I'm not trying to screw up your state.


----------



## Plainsman

When I started working with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service back in 1971 I worked with some old die hard diver hunters. These guys hunted large saline lakes with hand carved decoys. If you hunt divers you will occasionally bust a roost. There is no way around it, and I think it's just something everyone has to live with. Most of the time you can avoid roosts. If you set up for a late afternoon hunt there will be no puddle ducks around then later boom you find them all coming back and your on a roost. It is occasionally unavoidable. In some of those cases your really not on a roost, but are in an area where waterfowl are responding to an invertebrate emergence. They may feed there until well after dark, then move to their roost. Many people may think that is the roost, but heavy emergence of Chironomidae, for example, will bring waterfowl from many miles around to feed only.

How scientific do you guys want to be when looking for diver wetlands? If you don't mind looking at some botany books that will help. Find _Potamogeton pectinatus_ and you will find canvasback and swan. Invertebrates are important also. If you find high populations of _Hyalella azteca_ you will have a good chance at Scaup.

Do you want to spend $200? Purchase a conductivity meter. There are cheap ones on the market. Remember the old story about be careful with electricity and water. Well, water doesn't carry electricity any more than rubber does. It is the dissolved minerals in the water that carry the electricity. The salinity of wetlands has a large impact on the plants and invertebrates that inhabit it. Divers are often found on wetlands of high salinity. A conductivity of 5,000 to 30,000 may or may not have a roost on it, but it will more than likely have divers. Also, once you get conductivity beyond 5,000 mallards and other puddle ducks may be feeding there, but I would guess they are roosting somewhere else. I remember a particular pond with a conductivity of about 5,000 and the 20 years I monitored it I only seen one puddle duck brood on that wetland.


----------



## birdog105

I personally enjoy pass shooting as well... Some of the best hunts I can remember were pass shooting divers, and the occasional pintail/mallard that swings through...


----------



## Canuck

Plainsman,

30,000 Seimens or micro-Seimens?? In sloughs?

Canuck


----------



## barebackjack

ruger1 said:


> If you do bust a roost, where do they go? I'm curious about why all the NODAK guys get so worked up about it. You can't tell me the ducks fly 300 miles away if they are busted off the roost. They probably just go to the next little pot hole where they are not bothered. I guess coming from north central MN where all we hunt is water, I'm just not getting it.


If they are busted off the roosts enough times, yes, they will go 300 miles, OR MORE!

Ive seen roosts in our area get smoked two or three times a day during the big NR rush. Even if its only getting hit several times a week, its not going to take birds long to say the hell with it and head out. If they have no place to rest unmolested, they WILL go great distances.


----------

