Duck hunting's future....

[crc]

Hard to believe what's happened to the Katy, Eagle Lake, Garwood areas that used to be so good.

Ducks like rice, not cotton.

[ram04]

So global warming? Al was right?[emoji30]

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When is pertains to ducks and their migration, yep.

[MooseontheLoose]

I'm on the weather (or lack of it) train myself. Got to witness it firsthand last year on our February Nebraska goose hunt. Our first day or two there were cold temps but nice sunny weather and there were ducks and geese everywhere. They were thick on the river and lake. It snowed a lot the last couple days and dipped down to brutal cold temps. The roost lake we were by froze over, good snow everywhere, and everything pushed out of the area. We left and didn’t start seeing birds again until several hours further south in Kansas once we got below the snow/ice line. If they got weather like that earlier in the year, the birds would show up down here IMO. I picked a bucket of tomatoes out of my garden on December 23rd this year. Not the best deer & duck conditions when the weather is/stays like that.

Really hoping for a super wet spring up on the prairies to help the numbers start to bounce back, then a good hard freeze at the beginning of November. One of these years it will happen again.

Where all the gadwall are hiding this year is a mystery to me too. Usually they’re everywhere in my neck of the woods, but I’ve only seen a handful this year. There’s one group of about a dozen on a creek I hunt and those gadwall are the spookiest birds I’ve hunted in a long time, even though they’ve had almost no pressure this year. Don’t know if I’ve seen a dozen gaddies everywhere else combined that I’ve hunted/scouted this year.

[3rdCoastHunter]

They could drop big ducks to 3 as long as all teal stayed at 6 - that would be ideal IMO

[Mitchell8]

Duck hunting should go bow only for 5 years

[hopedale]

https://www.facebook.com/cohenwildlab/posts/475444310590425

For those not on book of faces -

Cohen Wildlife Labs wrote:

"Last week we mentioned that our ducks rarely cross over the Mississippi River.

Today, we want to discuss why.

The answer is relatively simple - west Tennessee has duck food, and lots of it, especially on private lands.

During our project, we repeatedly surveyed flooded unharvested corn fields throughout winter to understand how much corn was available and used by ducks.

Take a look at the attached graph and notice that corn remains available on the landscape well into March. We are posting a zoomed in version of last week's map to look at two of our birds that generally stay close to where we captured them at White Lake Refuge.

You can see the clear back and forth movements of these birds between refuge and flooded unharvested corn fields.

Why fly further than you must? There is no reason to cross the Mississippi when you have all the food you need close by. #mallardmovementmonday #duckscience #tnmallardproject #duckfood #duckcorn Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency" - https://www.cohenwildlifelab.com/

Now watch a short film from Flyway Federation -

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkE3NvSuF8E"]Where are the Ducks? Part 1 - YouTube[/ame]
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And second video -

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[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPQWQJK4WIQ&t=2s"]Where are the Ducks? Part 2 - YouTube[/ame]

I've always believed a shorter season and smaller limits might get the money out of the short-stopping, but when I look at what folks spend on a pheasant hunts I'm not sure.

The high rollers will still pay to go to the premiere lodge, and won't care if all they shoot is 3 birds.

Put more money in the duck factory, which had a horrible drought in 2021.
Increase the removal of preditor animals in the duck factory.
Stop allowing the hunting in a flooded corn field.
Eliminate ice eaters
Reduce the season from to 45 with a mandatory split. And have the season begin in the northern states in May. Ok, maybe not May but before the ducks should move to the south.

[Gclyde12]

I think pressure has finally taken its toll on the birds and they find places they are safe and don’t venture very far off. The people that strictly manage pressure still have birds in my opinion. We have family friends that have ranches in south texas and north Texas and both have incredible bird numbers. Both in areas that don’t look like duck country at all but they strictly manage how to hunt them and the hunts are incredible. If everyone in duck country would do that i think we would see some incredible numbers but there is to much money with the outfitters and everything now for that to happen

[Snowflake Killa]

I read alot of this sounds like yall need livescope [emoji16]

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[SC-001]

The truth is there are far fewer hunters today than 20 years ago.

From 1999-2003 there were an avg of 101K duck hunters in TX.
The last 5 years the avg is 77K. That's a 24% drop in duck hunters.

Texas overall harvest rates have definitely declined but is that because of declining hunter numbers?


https://www.fws.gov/birds/surveys-an...nd-harvest.php

I don't believe that for a second, the duck dynasty boom had every swinging d*ck with beard in our neck of the woods leasing up every service site lake available, back in the 90's nobody cared about duck hunting then that d@mn reality show went on air. It anything you've got way more people hunting that aren't buying licenses.

[eradicator]

Three times, every time......

[Els16]

I hunt in Stuttgart AR every year. The property I hunt on has been in the family since the early 50s. The duck numbers are down. The past few years have been bad. A lot of the ducks are holding up north. Always fun trip but hopefully things change soon.

[unclefish]

I don't believe that for a second, the duck dynasty boom had every swinging d*ck with beard in our neck of the woods leasing up every service site lake available, back in the 90's nobody cared about duck hunting then that d@mn reality show went on air.

Sure. The duck dynasty boom is fake news....at least for Texas. It simply didn't happen. The numbers have never exceeded the heyday of the late 80s to early 2000's.

In the late 80s to mid 90s had non-stop idiots. I lived it. The term Barney was invented in the mid 90s because of the influx of idiot hunters that sky blasted and tried to call every duck they saw. You had to camp overnight to get the spot you wanted.

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[James]

Very interesting thread. I’m no duck hunter but i have Lots of friends in the northern states who slayed them all season.

[SC-001]

Sure. The duck dynasty boom is fake news....at least for Texas. It simply didn't happen. The numbers have never exceeded the heyday of the late 80s to early 2000's.

In the late 80s to mid 90s had non-stop idiots. I lived it. The term Barney was invented in the mid 90s because of the influx of idiot hunters that sky blasted and tried to call every duck they saw. You had to camp overnight to get the spot you wanted.

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I'm not talking public, I'm talking private lease ground. There was no duck leasing going on here in the mid 90's, boy has that changed and them boys paid money for nothing this year.

[Dale Moser]

I’ve always wondered if all of the neighborhood flood control, and park, lakes ..have anything to do with it?

We are covering thousands upon thousands of acres that used to be worthless to ducks, with new homes, and new buildings. It’s common/mandatory now to build certain flood control reservoirs to go along with them all. Much of the country I grew up on had no water, and no agricultural appeal to waterfowl. Now there are houses built on that land, as well as commercial structures, all requiring certain flood retention requirements, many of which include nearly constant level ponds. These ponds fill up with waterfowl nowadays in places where there were zero in my youth. They are not significant on their own, but there are thousands of these small reservoirs all over DFW, and many of them fill up with ducks this time of year.


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