In the Choctaw language, Atchafalaya means “long river.” The river runs 137 miles through five parishes, where it ultimately empties into Atchafalaya Bay south of Morgan City. Beyond the river banks is the Atchafalaya Basin, the largest wetland swamp in the United States, encompassing some 1.4 million acres. The Basin contains forest, marsh and open water habitat, making it an ideal location for hunting wood ducks.
In the Basin there’s nothing quite like sitting in the twilight, where darkness begins to give way to an encroaching sunrise. From all directions there is high-pitched “weeee-weeee” sounds coming from gaudy drakes racing above the waters trying to get to their favorite pond amongst the cypress and tupelo trees.
Patterson resident Jesse Clifton and his family regularly hunt woodies in the Basin during the fall and winter.They’re also public land hunters and in years past often hunted the Atchafalaya Delta Wildlife Management Area located along the coast in St. Mary Parish.
However, Clifton, 36, said that whenever he and his brothers, plus a couple friends, made trips to the Delta there were only so many spots available where a bunch of guys could hunt together. That’s when they decided to hunt elsewhere and looked to the Basin.
“In the Basin we started out hunting poule d’eaus out on Flat Lake and in past years we’d always go out there and shoot hundreds of birds,” he said. “During those first few years we rode around and there was like a crazy amount of wood ducks in these holes.
“Now all we hunt is wood ducks. And, whenever we have family down, we make it a point to make a trip to the Basin to hunt them. Early on we figured out that we would have a pretty fair chance at shooting a good number of wood ducks.”
Plenty of opportunities
During the 2024-25 East Zone waterfowl season, I had a chance to hunt with Clifton and his crew. We met at the Spunky Monkey in Belle River for biscuits and coffee at 5 a.m. and took off 30 minutes later for Adams Landing a couple miles down the road toward Morgan City. Once the boats were launched, it was barely a 10-minute boat ride to their blinds.
The limit on wood ducks is three per day, per hunter. In years past, Clifton mentioned there were a few times his guys killed seven and eight-man limits during morning hunts. On our hunt last year, we didn’t limit out, but one thing is for sure, we had plenty of opportunities.
What can I say? It was a marksmanship thing. And despite our target acquisition problems, we still wound up with a pile of squealers.
Finding birds
With 1.4 million acres of swamp, how do you know where to hunt in the Basin and what you are looking for?
“We ride around up and down canals and bayous looking where birds consistently want to be,” Clifton said. “If we find a spot, we’ll go back a couple of days later. If they’re still there, we know there’s a good chance the birds will be there for opening weekend.”
Clifton said it’s all about looking around for where they’re piling in. What’s more, he points out, wood ducks are a bird that likes to fly early in the morning and late in the afternoon.
“It’s watching those flight paths and seeing where they want to go — where they want to be at,” Clifton said. “We also look for feed. So we look for subaquatic vegetation. Ultimately, once we find the birds, we try to stick around and hunt those areas to see if we can get them there.
Navigating water levels in the Basin
Hunting ducks in the Basin is a shallow running craft with surface drive motor affair. Once you get off the deeper main bayous and canals, you’re typically in a foot to a foot and a half of water and during periods of no rain, sometimes less.
According to Clifton, the Basin’s water depth varies throughout the fall.
“The Basin’s water fluctuates a lot!” Clifton said. “During the first couple of weekends of the 2024 East Zone season, the water was high where we could easily get into the back waters. By Thanksgiving, it became a mud flat. I struggled getting through the main canal with my Pro-Drive. Then a couple weeks later it was high again.”
Clifton doesn’t attribute the water fluctuation to rising and falling river stages, like one would see during the spring. Moreover, the river flood stage at Morgan City, for the most part, stays constant and stable during the fall. Instead, he says it’s the wind.
“When I hunted wood ducks during Thanksgiving, there was an 18 mph north wind that pushed the water out,” he said. “The next time I went there was a southeast wind and the water was back up in the Basin. I’m no meteorologist, but from what I can tell, the Basin water level is more effected by wind.”
Wood duck hunters could also opt to transport a canoe, kayak, or pirogue into the Basin and paddle or push-pole to back water blinds.
Wood duck calling strategies
Wood ducks are early morning and late evening flyers. Most of the time they’re settled into where they want to be in the first hour of shooting light. They are not like puddle ducks such as mallards, pintails and gadwalls, where good calling is a huge part of being successful.
Instead, wood duck calling is more of an attention getter.
“One of the guys that hunts with us is Tyler Blanchard,” Clifton said. “Tyler is really good at calling wood ducks. Growing up he had wood ducks behind his house since he was young. But part of calling woodies is hearing them and then calling to let them know we’re here. You don’t want to scream at them the whole time. Every once in a while, if they pass, we might try to give them a little something, just to see, but calling wood ducks is to let them know we’re here. That’s how we play it with wood ducks.”
Decoying woodies
Another way wood duck hunting differs from puddle duck hunting is how you decoy them? Big ducks like mallards, pintails, gadwalls and various diving ducks often require large decoy spreads, particularly the later in the season it gets.
Where wood ducks are concerned, Clifton said that’s not the case. He mentioned when you see wood ducks flying, they’re mostly in pairs and often a drake and a hen.
“We have always found that wood ducks decoy better when you only put out a couple of pairs here and there,” he said. “Every once in a while you might put out a few more, but we normally don’t go more than six depending how spread out ‘we’ are.”
Blinds and cover
When it comes to waterfowl hunting across the Louisiana landscape, blinds range from pit blinds buried along rice field levees, to surface drive boats with sophisticated camouflage covers for open water, to permanent blinds built with treated lumber in flag grass next to a pond.
When hunting wood ducks in the Basin, there are challenges and differences that matter because of the swampy terrain.
“It’s all natural,” Clifton said. “Because the Basin is swampy, we regularly stand on pallets and use what’s natural to the area. We stand next to the trunk of cypress trees beneath the canopy and shoot both decoying and passing woodies.”
When family and friends are hunting together, Clifton said they look for small islands with trees that are surrounded by water. Because seven or eight and occasionally nine hunters will be together, it’s necessary to shuttle hunters from the main canal to the blind in the backwater areas.
On the islands, members of his crew will build a boat blind on one end of the island and use natural vegetation like willow tree limbs for cover. On the other end of the island, they’ll build pallet blinds so that all of the hunters will have a clear shooting lane for safety.
“You don’t want to use something they’ve never seen like commercial grasses you see at the store,” Clifton said. “It’s not something they see all the time, so you try to get material from the surrounding vegetation that is natural to the environment. After that, it’s trying not to make a lot of movement. As long as you’re not moving too much, you’ll get some shots.”
Clifton also recommended using marsh seats. Avery, Alps, Mojo Decoys and Avian-X all make great marsh seats for hunting wood ducks in the Basin.
Ammo and shot size
Wood ducks are medium size ducks on the smaller side. In short, they don’t take a lot of large hard-hitting pellets to kill. Hevi-Shot makes a Hevi-Teal load that comes in No. 5 and No. 6 shot size. Kent Cartridge makes a TealSteel load that also comes in No. 5 and No. 6 shot size. Both are excellent for Atchafalaya Basin wood ducks.
“I generally use No. 6 shot, but I’ll load sixes and put in the magazine a No. 4 as a backup,” Clifton said. “Hopefully, I’m not shooting three shots, but if I miss, I’ve got something with some umph to finish and have a better chance of getting the duck.”
Shot size and chokes that spread matter when hunting the Basin for woodies, Clifton warned.
“When you see them, quite often they’re going to be right on top of you or a lot closer than you’re used to,” Clifton said. “Shots are quick in the Spillway. It’s not like open marsh on the Atchafalaya Delta where you see them coming.”
Besides being a spectacularly beautiful duck, wood ducks make delicious table fare. In fact, many waterfowl aficionados think it just might be the best tasting of all duck species. Regardless of your palate, one thing is for sure, if you have an envie for wood ducks, plan to make a hunt in the Atchafalaya Basin. You’ll be glad you did.
