trouble on the waterfowling horizon.....

I have been reading many articles that have been suggesting the same thing. More for the reason of the new farm bill and the past couple years of sever drought though.

3 per man limit and 30 day season, 2 limit 20 day season. With the cost of hunting nowadays it will kill the sport. I dont think we will see anything that drastic however.

More to do with duck reproduction numbers and the breeding ground but I diff wouldn't put it past ole achmed.

"Lreynolds" posted here a few weeks ago about pintail numbers and skewed data, that's probably him that was quoted in the article. Hopefully he can come back and shed some light

I remember it like it was yesterday, my grandfather bitching at my dad for shooting a greenhead, "pintails only!" . They were a 10 pt bird back in the day. I wish I still had that poster with the ducks and their point values I had on my bedroom wall when I was a kid.

We had the stretch with no early teal season also. I remember it being at a point a few years back that it should have dropped, but they juggled the numbers to keep it 6/60. I think the ammo/decoy/gun etc lobby worked it pretty hard. It's cyclical like anything else, we've had some years recently that you had to hunt am/pm to scratch out 6 birds if you were lucky.

yeah.. capt... i used to have that poster on my wall too....

now.. my kid has the homepages for Ms, TX, LA and AL... on his phone and ipad....


you are right the "industry" has probably kept us 6 and 60 a couple of times....


and I remember someone saying people were NUTS for paying 300 for a rice field blind.....

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I remeber those days well. You're correct, it didn't kill it, but it did run alot of folks off of big company leases etc. I'm thinking that's what you meant by "clean it up".

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not really.. but sort of...

when the limits rose and season extended.... a lot of folks got into waterfowling that weren't before.. - nothing wrong with that..

but....... it became less about the ducks and the experience.. and more about the killing...

I didn't hear the words trash duck a lot... until after the three duck days... and

look I grew up in rice field country and had access to some incredible places... there were days we didn't fire a shot in the late 70s and early and mid 80s... and the weather was perfect...

we didn't blame refuges, DU or the feds..... the ducks just went somewhere else that day....

duck hunters now are always looking for someone to blame if they don't kill a limit...

man.. I like being in a blind with good company.. watching the sunrise... and watching the world come alive....and the cycle of life continues...

I would rather a 4/60 or 3/50 framework if they have to change season. I found during those 3 bird years, the birds weren't harassed as much. I was hunting Wax and Catahoula mostly, which always seemed to be covered up with ducks. You'd go whack your limit go back to camp and start an 8 beer roux. Birds got to relax for the most part the rest of the day.

Well said.

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This is why I always preferred duck hunting to deer hunting. Watching otters swim through the decoys. Listening to BS stories. The farting contests (more of a rating system than an actual competition). We hardly ever limited out, but many a good time was still had. I really miss those days.

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Exactly why I can't get back into deer hunting. Used to do it when I was younger and enjoyed it but now I can't possibly imagine sitting in a tree by myself for hours just looking into the woods...or posting on TD