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Last Call on Big Water

By RVL / October 16, 2026

2021 Federal Duck Stamp by Richard Clifton

Last Call on Big Water

Hardcore™ Waterfowl’s Rugged Series Bluebill Duck Decoys close out the diver season with the bird that rides the cold fronts south

MUSKEGON, Mich. (October 16, 2026) – The redhead steals the room, and the canvasback has worn the crown for over a century. The bluebill, though, is the one still out there when everyone else has gone home, riding a north wind into the decoys on a day most folks wouldn’t leave the truck.

Bluebill is the name most hunters use for two birds, the lesser and greater scaup, after that pale, slate-blue bill. It’s far from the only name, though. Along the Atlantic Coast, old-timers still call the greater a broadbill, and plenty of Midwestern hunters grew up shooting “little bluebills” off the big lakes. Call them what you want. From a distance they’re the ducks that look dark on both ends and bright in the middle, and once you’ve seen a flock of them low over the whitecaps, you don’t mistake them for much else.

Telling a lesser from a greater on the wing is a game even veteran diver hunters lose. The greater runs a little bigger, with a rounder head and more white in the wing. Odds are, though, the bird in your hand is a lesser. Ducks Unlimited estimates greater scaup make up only about 11 percent of the continental scaup population, which leaves lessers carrying roughly nine of every ten bluebills.

Where you hunt has a lot to do with which one you’ll see. Lesser scaup are the inland bluebill, the bird of the Mississippi and Central flyways, big prairie and northwoods lakes, the river pools, and southern wintering water from the Gulf Coast to Florida. Greater scaup lean toward big, open water and salt. They’re most common along the Atlantic Coast from New England to the Chesapeake, on the lower Great Lakes, and along the Pacific Coast. Most hunters don’t sweat the difference, and that’s fine. A bluebill is a bluebill when they’re coming hard at the spread.

Photo by Valerie Fellows/Credit USFWS

Blue-Collar Bird

If the canvasback is the aristocracy of the diver world, the bluebill is the rank and file. They don’t wait for the weather to suit them or make a grand entrance. They show up in numbers, punch the clock on the worst days of the season, and go to work. Bluebills travel in tight, busy flocks, come in low and fast over the whitecaps, and have a well-earned reputation for decoying like they mean it.

They’re the everyday diver, too. A lot of hunters never get a shot at a canvasback, but most anyone who’s spent a few seasons on big water has a bluebill story. For plenty of them, it was the first diver they ever shot, and the one that hooked them on big water for good.

Born Farther North

Bluebills nest well north of most of their diving cousins. Lesser scaup breed across the western boreal forest, from the aspen parklands of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba up through the Northwest Territories and into Alaska, with smaller numbers on the prairies. Greater scaup push farther still. They nest on the tundra and coastal wetlands of northern Canada and Alaska, and across the top of Europe and Asia, too. Alaska alone is home to roughly three-quarters of North America’s breeding greaters.

Lesser scaup are also among the latest-nesting ducks on the continent. Many hens don’t get started until June, long after the mallards and pintails have hatched broods. It’s a bird that does things on its own schedule, and that holds true come fall.

Numbers Headed the Right Way

The two species are close to impossible to tell apart from an airplane, so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service counts them together. In 2025, that combined breeding population dipped 10 percent to 3.68 million birds. This year’s survey turned it around, coming in at 4.16 million, a 13 percent jump.

Scaup are still working back toward their long-term average, and biologists have been watching them closely since the declines of the 1980s and ’90s. A double-digit bounce is a welcome sign, though, and it means more birds headed down the flyways this fall.

Riding the Cold Front South

If the redheads open the diver season and the canvasbacks arrive fashionably late, the bluebills close it out. They hang on up north until the ice pushes them out, and the big flights tend to ride the hard cold fronts of November. Ask any diver hunter about bluebill weather and you’ll get a story about snow, whitecaps, and birds that never seemed to quit.

On the way down, lesser scaup pile into staging areas loaded with fingernail clams, snails, and other aquatic invertebrates. The Upper Mississippi River pools, Minnesota’s and Wisconsin’s big lakes, and the Great Lakes waters of Green Bay, Lake St. Clair, and western Lake Erie can hold rafts numbering in the thousands before the birds push on south.

Wherever bluebills settle, they want open water and plenty of company. That’s what gives the hunter a chance. A big flock of tired bluebills sees a raft of birds sitting comfortably on the water and wants in.

Foam-Filled for Bluebill Weather

Like the redheads and canvasbacks before them, the Rugged Series Bluebill Decoy is a foam-filled, one-piece build. It’s solid rather than hollow, so it rides steady in wind and chop and keeps its shape through a season of hard use. The WhaleTail™ Keel turns even a light current into natural swimming motion, which keeps the spread alive on calmer days, too.

“The best bluebill days are usually the worst days to be on the water,” Veldhuizen said. “You’re setting decoys in wind, waves, sometimes ice. A foam-filled decoy rides right in that stuff, takes a beating, and won’t sink on you if it catches a stray pellet.”

Built to Be Seen From Way Out

Hardcore’s Rugged Series Bluebill Duck Decoys are sized for that. At 15″ L x 8″ W, they’re oversized on purpose, so the spread stands out on the open water where bluebills spend their days.

“Bluebills are flock birds, and they’re looking for other bluebills from a long way off,” said Doug Veldhuizen, Hardcore Merchandise Manager. “Give them a spread they can pick out from across the lake and they’ll usually come take a closer look. Most days, they come right in.”

Paint That Reads at a Distance

A bluebill drake is all contrast, and the decoy must carry that across open water. Hardcore’s true-to-life drake and hen paint schemes put the dark head and chest, bright white sides, and finely barred gray back right where a passing flock expects to see them. The hens bring the softer brown tones and that signature white face patch.

“That white flank is what shows up first,” Veldhuizen said. “We wanted the drakes to pop the way live birds do on gray water, and with four drakes and two hens in every pack, you’ve got a spread that looks right out of the box.”

The bluebills will be the last ones down this season, and some of the best hunting of the year usually comes with them. A spread that’s built to be seen should help you get a crack at them before season’s end.

Rugged Series Bluebill Duck Decoys FEATURES:

  • Foam-Filled One-Piece Decoys
  • Over-Size Decoys
  • True-To-Life Drake and Hen Paint Schemes
  • WhaleTail™ Keel Creates Lifelike Movement With Little Current
  • 6-Pack Includes: 4 Drakes & 2 Hens
  • 15″ L x 8″ W

MSRP $119.99

ABOUT NEXUS OUTDOORS

Nexus Outdoors, headquartered in Muskegon, MI, USA, is a leading worldwide designer, marketer and distributor of performance, hunting and casual odor-controlling apparel, footwear and equipment under the ScentLok Technologies®, OZ®, Blocker Outdoors®, Whitewater, HARDCORE, and Tree Spider® brands. It also owns American Range Systems, manufacturer and distributor of the world’s strongest and safest bullet traps. Nexus Outdoors is the only company with access to all scent-controlling technologies, including their patented Carbon Alloy™ and Cold Fusion Catalyst™ technologies, which provide superior success in the field. ScentLok and Blocker Outdoors are pioneers in the hunting industry, which many credit with creating a market focused on superior scent control to get closer to big game

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