Let's talk cattail strategies

B

Bob Peters

Well-known member
I know a lot of guys like when things freeze because they can hunt the cattails. Of course some you can hunt earlier because they're fairly dry. I've read some guys get on a frozen lake and walk the cattail edge. I've done a little of this, and got one bird doing it. What do you look for in cattails? It seems like in MN many of the cattails are very tall and thick, vs. South Dakota they seem a little shorter and thinner and nicer to walk through. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, I remember a WIA the first time ever I went to hunt for the King of birds, the ringneck rooster pheasant, in South Dakota. Not far from a well known town, this spot was crawling with birds. Walking in, flying in, pecking around out in the field and on the fenceline. A shelterbelt on one side, a weedy fence line and a whole field of corn that was chopped but still full of stubble and corn cobbs. And in the heart of it a large cattail patch that was thick and gnarly and warm in January...but I digress.

I've kinda learned to pick my battles with hunting cattails in sloughs, lakes, creeks, pits and ponds. Of course the "goldilocks" cattails, thick enough to hold a good bird population, short enough to see/shoot over, full of deer trails, I'll walk those all day. A couple private spots I hunt late season are thick and gnarly. When I first started I'd plow through them, often flushing birds I could barely see, huffing, puffing, and mostly muffing shots. It really wears the dog out too when you try to hunt the really thick stuff for a long period of time. Now what I try to do is, pick an inside edge, outside edge, and walk some trails if there are some. Sometimes if there's a cane break, aka phragmites patch, or a willow clump, that is of reasonable size I'll bust through the thick stuff and see if I can get a flush before retreating to the more manageable edge. One other thing I observed and believe mentioned before. I once hunted a spot down by Fairmont VERY late season, probably last weekend. Snow drifts were deep. I felt crazy as a loon walking out there. When I hit the cattails there was no snow in them, they were loaded with birds, and they were perfect for hunting. Up to my armpits, trails in them etc. I went back the next year and they were all 6-7 feet tall and thick! Not sure what happened there. I never take secret spots by pm, but if you want to send a secret technique, hey, I'm all good with that!
 
Bob Peters said:
I know a lot of guys like when things freeze because they can hunt the cattails. Of course some you can hunt earlier because they're fairly dry. I've read some guys get on a frozen lake and walk the cattail edge. I've done a little of this, and got one bird doing it. What do you look for in cattails? It seems like in MN many of the cattails are very tall and thick, vs. South Dakota they seem a little shorter and thinner and nicer to walk through. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, I remember a WIA the first time ever I went to hunt for the King of birds, the ringneck rooster pheasant, in South Dakota. Not far from a well known town, this spot was crawling with birds. Walking in, flying in, pecking around out in the field and on the fenceline. A shelterbelt on one side, a weedy fence line and a whole field of corn that was chopped but still full of stubble and corn cobbs. And in the heart of it a large cattail patch that was thick and gnarly and warm in January...but I digress.

I've kinda learned to pick my battles with hunting cattails in sloughs, lakes, creeks, pits and ponds. Of course the "goldilocks" cattails, thick enough to hold a good bird population, short enough to see/shoot over, full of deer trails, I'll walk those all day. A couple private spots I hunt late season are thick and gnarly. When I first started I'd plow through them, often flushing birds I could barely see, huffing, puffing, and mostly muffing shots. It really wears the dog out too when you try to hunt the really thick stuff for a long period of time. Now what I try to do is, pick an inside edge, outside edge, and walk some trails if there are some. Sometimes if there's a cane break, aka phragmites patch, or a willow clump, that is of reasonable size I'll bust through the thick stuff and see if I can get a flush before retreating to the more manageable edge. One other thing I observed and believe mentioned before. I once hunted a spot down by Fairmont VERY late season, probably last weekend. Snow drifts were deep. I felt crazy as a loon walking out there. When I hit the cattails there was no snow in them, they were loaded with birds, and they were perfect for hunting. Up to my armpits, trails in them etc. I went back the next year and they were all 6-7 feet tall and thick! Not sure what happened there. I never take secret spots by pm, but if you want to send a secret technique, hey, I'm all good with that!
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Make sure they are good and frozen.Ive fallen through up to my neck in below zero weather,that sucked.Luckily the truck was close.I don't wade through cattails much any more.My strategy used to be to just hard core in there.If you do get a bird,you will lose a lot as well.
 
I personally like to move them out of cattails into surrounding grass. I have couple spots where it works like a champ. Way to many shot birds are “lost” in cattails.
 
This year I'd say move through them however you can. Never seen anything like it. Over my head and unable to get to my dog in most cases. The ones we were around and in required a deer trail for most part to move through. Many areas were physically impossible to move through.
 
Goosemaster said:
Make sure they are good and frozen.Ive fallen through up to my neck in below zero weather,that sucked.
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I've also gone through multiple times. Never up to my neck, but several times up to my waist. It sucks. Ruins your day quick. Isn't worth it for me anymore so I just stay out of them until they are froze.

This early cold snap we've just had hardened everything up really good like concrete. The last few years that never occured because it was either 1) too warm, or 2) too much snow before it got cold. Basically the same problems that ice fisherman have trying to form a good base layer on the lakes.

When I hunt cattails I go in there late in the day - like the last spot I intend to hunt. What I'm trying to do here is find some roosted in for the night. I hunted a patch of cattails my last time out but only found 1 hen. Once we get measureable snow on the ground, look for tracks that would indicate more activity in them (or not).
 
Cattails are frustrating for me. Just when you think they are frozen enough, you find a spot with swamp gas or a little moving spring and drop down just enough to go over the top of the boot. I try to follow deer trails as busting my own path makes a ton of noise.
 
Found a honey hole 50+ acre cattail patch. Nightmare to walk thru but full of birds. Thought about it all night. Went back with a strategy. There was a high spot on one edge you could see over the whole patch. I turned my girl loose while I snuck up there kneeled down and waited. Had gps collar on the dog and could see her movements a lot of the time. She’s a big running setter and I just let her go and do her thing. Yes she kicked up birds way out of range but eventually she got around my way. Had shots on fez and deer. Pretty slick
 
I hunted mostly cattails last Sunday since it was 5 degrees out, and put up a lot of birds, but all of them were out of range. The problem with cattails is that they are very noisy to walk through. I walked 4 different sloughs on the same public area and never got closer than 75 yards to a rooster. Overall we probably put up 30-40 birds. Once we get a decent snow the birds should hold tighter.
That said, I hunted a different public area the previous Sunday and shot 2 birds in the cattails that were holding tight.
My only "rules" for cattails is that they are walkable and I can see over them.
 
I'll echo to be careful. I walked inside cattails last Saturday, but avoided any large patches of frozen water and did not venture out to the middle water. Having said that, the middle water, after another week of cold temps can often be safer than cattails. Warm spots in cattails, out near the middle water, are nasty. I try to stay on the cattail clumps when navigating between land and the middle water.

My favorite cattails are pothole sloughs (lots of these in NE SD). The type where there is more frozen water/mud than cattails and the cattails are small island clumps.

As for strategy, if you can walk the land edge and then work the opposite middle water edge, or vice versa, where strip of cattails isn't too far across, you can sometimes push the birds to the opposite side and get them up when walking that side.

On a related note, a couple weeks ago, hunting in NC SD, I was walking an old section road that was not in use. Cattails on each side, close to the road. One side was private, once side was CREP. I watched some of the birds I passed on and some of the wild flushes out of range to see where they went. Even though it was a long distance across the crep to the tilled corn edge on the other side, the cattails were thick enough that some of the birds made it to that edge. I walked the edge next and got up some birds and bagged one.

Similarly, I got up some birds one morning that I thought might have made it to the other side of some cattails along a field edge. I didn't hunt the other edge that day. The next morning, I did. I figured those birds probably stayed over on that side to roost and to eat in the morning. I did get some birds up the next morning from that edge.

I guess the above fall under the category of watching where birds go and following up to find them again, but applied to cattails. Sometimes it is easy to watch them flush but ignore where they land, when there is a sea of cattails involved.

One other thing. I almost always try to work the downwind side of cattails, so the dog has a better chance of picking up the scent of a bird in the cattails, instead of relying solely on her picking up the scent trail the bird left on the ground. December, 2023, I was hunting a pothole slough in NE SD. It is one of my favorite places. The private land a little over 100 yards from the edge of the slough has cut corn and some left standing. Might be other food plants too. That property is a bird paradise, with varied habitat and a ton of birds. Some of them always head over to the public land.

The wind was blowing out of the cut corn, toward the slough. I went way around to the downwind side and entered the slough on that side. Either due to being pressured or some other reason, multiple roosters got up from the upwind edge of the slough and flew off to the private land before we were within range. Normally, the prevailing wind would have had me entering from that edge. Even with the wind going the opposite way, I should have approached from that food proximity side. Birds are almost always going to be closest to the food. Even if they would have heard me coming, I would have been between them and private land, and would have pushed them to other potholes on the public land.

Moral of the story -- walk the edge closest to food, regardless of wind direction.

And as luck would have it, I am about to step out onto a wpa, where there is a relatively large body of water, fringed with cattails, and the wind is blowing out of a tilled corn field 200-300 yards from the water. 25 mph wind, gusting in thr 30s, high 20s temp. Temp is going to drop throughout the day and windchill will be below 0 around 3 or 4 pm. Finger's crossed for some morning roosters!
 
I solo hunt exclusively cattails for the last 45 days of the season.
A biddable dog that will not go feral and flush roosters hundreds of yards deep is needed.
cattail_hunt.jpg
I silently hunt the edge of cattails while my lab hunts in them.
I try to position myself ahead of the crashing lab anticipating the flush.
Best spots are 60-80 yard wide cattails and for those I hustle to the end as that is where the roosters flush out.
But I've killed rooters in a huge sea of hundreds of acres cattails, especially right at dawn along the edge.

Early in the year with young birds, about half flush towards me because I am silent.
But late in the year, with wise roosters then almost always flush away.
So I am ready for a trap shot, and take only one shot focusing on following thru.
 
Ya know, for some reason I generally don’t have much luck in large cattail sloughs and am largely unsuccessful. Now really little patches in crp that’s a different story.
 
AKSkeeter said:
I solo hunt exclusively cattails for the last 45 days of the season.
A biddable dog that will not go feral and flush roosters hundreds of yards deep is needed.
View attachment 9517
I silently hunt the edge of cattails while my lab hunts in them.
I try to position myself ahead of the crashing lab anticipating the flush.
Best spots are 60-80 yard wide cattails and for those I hustle to the end as that is where the roosters flush out.
But I've killed rooters in a huge sea of hundreds of acres cattails, especially right at dawn along the edge.

Early in the year with young birds, about half flush towards me because I am silent.
But late in the year, with wise roosters then almost always flush away.
So I am ready for a trap shot, and take only one shot focusing on following thru.
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Nobody hunts early in the morning except geese. That's crazy!!
 
Drew said:
My strategy on cattails is to hunt with someone young and preferably someone who you don’t like, for me it’s my son in law. I send him in one end and I just keep pace with him along the most likely side for escaping birds.

It works every time
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You might owe me a lap top. I literally am wiping diet coke off my screen after reading this. Interest post of the day! LMAO
 
I’m glad that I brightened your day.

Isn’t that what son in laws are for though?
 
As with all pheasant hunting, there are lots of variables to consider. My strategy for cattails is like my strategy for everything when it comes to finding pheasants - work edges/transition habitat and follow the dog when she goes into the cattails or when she darts out into the lighter grass.

When it comes to those super thick, gnarly cattail stands, I think its unwise to just march through them for the reasons listed - noisy and tiring. Additionally, pheasants prefer not to land right in the thick of it. They'll land short and walk in, so it makes sense to work the edge until Sage picks up scent where they entered. Speaking of ease of landing, the ice provides the best landing zone for pheasants and that's what makes working the "inner ring" of cattails worthwhile. Further, having a touch of snow on the ground helps tremendously to see where pheasants are at. It's my personal belief that pheasants don't bust through the thicker cattails, rather they are like us, using deer trails and natural openings to move about unimpeded until they are pressured.

You're on the right track when you put your focus on the phragmite and willow patches. Those areas aren't as thick as the cattails generally and movement is easy for the birds, especially when they decide to make their escape. But I usually don't go directly into phragmites as I can't get a good shot off if something decides to flush, so I make my way around them and use the super secret command for Sage to flush them to an area where I can get a good shot. She pretends like she doesn't know it sometimes, though.
 
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