Virginia Hunting Trips

We have many private blinds on the Tidal Potomac River mainly in the Woodbridge area. Over the years we have worked really hard in positioning them to take advantage  of the feeding habits, weather patterns, wind direction, tide conditions, migration patterns, refuge impoundments and the kitchen sink. The Potomac has a variety ducks that migrate there every year. We hunt shallow bays near the refuge impoundments and the larger creeks for mallards, black ducks, pintails, gadwalls, ring necks, and widgeon. When it gets colder we move to our big water blinds to target canvasbacks, redheads, and blackheads (Chesapeake term for lesser scaup) and greater scaup. But when it freezes then it all comes to the big water blinds. And of course the bonus is we take Canada geese on a lot of our duck hunts. Our blinds are fixed stationary blinds and can accommodate 6 to 8 shooters comfortably. If you have more than that in your group we can run multiple blinds. 

Our inland areas are where we do a lot of our early season hunts.  During that time we have a lot of wood ducks, teal, and some resident mallards, and black ducks. Then there is always a smattering of gadwall as well. As we start getting into the  migration and colder weather the mallards and black ducks start to pour in. The ponds consistently produce Canada geese and some will cough up both geese and ducks.  These areas are well off the beaten path, but access into our blinds is very user friendly. We like to limit our puddle duck hunts in these areas to no more than 4 hunters per blind. Our blinds in these areas will be either stationary box blinds or permanently fixed A-frame blinds. 

Most of our field goose hunts occur in central Virginia, Our farms lye in the counties of Orange and Madison. The Blue Ridge Mountains are almost always the back drop for these hunts. Some of my most memorable hunts have been during the evening while a full moon hangs over the field with big flocks of Canadas in route to our field against the back drop of the piedmont hills or the Blue Ridge Mountains. Simply awesome! We do these hunts from A-frames or layout blinds According to our clients mobility.

We start our season on September 1. During that month we target early Canada geese on both water and in the field. Our water hunts are primarily on the Potomac and are very consistent; while our field and pond hunts take place at our farms in the central part of the state. We target both teal and geese the last half of the month. Teal hunting is all about timing if we time it right then its awesome, if we don‘t then the poor geese take the beating. The 4-day October season is all about wood ducks and teal in our swamps. It doesn’t get any better than our setup we have at Big Tree. All I’ll say is that you better bring your A game, because when they turn the corner into the slough they are going to be right in your face! November is all about hitting the birds that are staging here as they migrate through. We run a combination of hunts during thIs time. We‘ll continue to pound the swamps for wood ducks and teal, the only difference now is that the mallards  and black ducks will be joining in. Because our swamps are loaded with food we pull a lot of ducks into these areas.  This is also when we turn our attention to the blinds on the Potomac that are positioned around the refuge impoundments. We run traffic on these birds as they as they access these ponds. They are mostly mallards, black ducks, and gadwall. Its this part of the season when we will take a lot of Canada’s while duck hunting. This is not a coincidence  thIs is when we get our first big push of Canada geese. As they stage on our farms we get after the field hunting. This is one of my favorite times of the season to get on the big birds. December through January is when its all in play, as long as we don‘t get a major freeze  the swamps are fat with fat mallards and black ducks. Back on the river we are setting our 28-foot pontoon floater and running a massive spread for gadwall, widgeon, redheads, ring-necks, black-heads, and of course cans. Everything being equal and we had enough cold up north all of our birds should be in town, at that point all we need is some good nasty local weather to get them up and moving. This is the time of the year we will do our all day hunts. Mornings for puddle ducks, break for lunch, then back out for the afternoon for the big three divers, cans, blackheads, and redheads. A cloudy windy afternoon can be magical for the big three divers, and our afternoon hunts are very convenient for our local folks to get off work early to do some gunning. If we get ice, well its game over, it all comes to our big water blinds at that point.  February is all about field goose hunting to bring our season to a close. This has been our MO for the past 20 plus years and it has served our clients well. 

Ammo- we recommend that you use one of the high density loads manufactured by brands such as Boss Ammo or Heavy X. If you so choose to, we recommend No.4’s or 5’s for ducks and No.2’s for geese. If you  choose to go with straight steel then use No.2’s for ducks and BB’s for geese.

License-You will need to purchase the following: a Virginia state hunting license, a Virginia state waterfowl stamp, federal duck stamp (please sign your federal stamp), and HIP number.

Duck Limits- 6 ducks, any species except for the following restrictions: can include no more than 2 mallards (only 1 can be a hen), 4 scoters, 4 long tailed ducks, 3 wood ducks, 2 redheads, scaup;  1 per day except 2 per day from January 12 to 31, 1 pintail, 2 black duck (except closed during Oct. 5-8), 2 canvasbacks, 1 mottled duck, and 1 fulvous whistling duck.

Dogs- You are welcome to bring your own dog, provided they are well behaved, uncontrollable dogs will not be tolerated. 

Lodging- For our Virginia hunts we do not offer lodging. If you need lodging then we recommend that you stay near Woodbridge for our Potomac River hunts, for our swamp and field hunts we recommend you stay in Fredericksburg or the town of Orange.