duck season interesting read from up north...

Me and my duck hunting buddy have been saying this for several years now and thus article helps reinforce it.

Plenty of face paint on the shelves

heck they are even blaming minnow farmers......


but no mention of one of the bigger culprits..

NO TILL

While public hunting lands are busy, there are also tons of now "public" and private land that is not hunted at all. Up north for example the power plants that use water to cool down equipment and have ponds they expel the water into. So those ponds are now safe havens that don't freeze over so they hold birds until the ground freezes or snow is so thick the food is gone.

Golf courses and other state land that is off limits to hunting are sprouting up all over the place, waterfowl aren't stupid. Even private land with people that don't hunt, give birds a long weekend of being shot at and they find out right quick that that little 2 acre pond across the street is not hunted. Next thing you know it holds 1,000 birds that fly over your head at 400 ft and filter in to that spot the rest of the year.

"Back in the day" people would just ask permission (or not) and go hunt those little safe havens the birds found, and the birds would be pushed back around. Now there are safe havens for birds they never have to leave.

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actually I think the number of golf courses is declining nationwide

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I'm sure from say the 1990s-2000s, but I'm just saying there are a ton of new golf courses since "back in the day" like the 1980s or before. I mean there are a ton of golf courses that are less than 25 years old.

Its not just golf courses by any means. Take an HOA community with a couple of ponds, or any development. I've seen industrial ponds just loaded with ducks.

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However I am still very skeptical of all these record numbers of birds that we are supposed to have. Hopefully Larry can drop in and share some knowledge on how they come up with the numbers but I want to say that I large part is based on equation and not actual hands-on research and eyeballing.

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I think the USF&W still does pond counts and brood surveys with boots on the ground.

I am like you though, skeptical on these record numbers. Especially on the Mallard counts. Where are all these Mallards? Very few even make it into LA anymore and I know AR has fr fewer compared to the numbers of 20 or so years ago and if MI doesn't have them I guess MO is hoarding all the Mallards.

I enjoyed the sport, but stopped duck hunting several years ago. It seemed to be that the show was essentially over after the first couple of weeks of the first split ... at least on Catahoula. Miss it, but I am not going to spend that kind of money to sit in a blind and admire the sky.

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Ive been to Canada in January and there were still ducks and geese in the fields.

No till has had a huge affect on the migration. I also believe the flyway has shifted to more non-traditional duck hunting states to the west.

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and changing land use practices and habitat changes here have hurt us more than most who know will admit....

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Miss it, but I am not going to spend that kind of money to sit in a blind and admire the sky.

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I doubt I could ever be tied down to a blind again. It's so much better to get a network of outfitters and then just pay hunt. That way you pretty much kill birds since a reputable outfitter usually tells you if they aren't killing, you get a guide that pretty well does the dirty work, and you get a change of scenery from the same blind day in and day out. The drawback is obviously not getting to go when you want but I am good with that.

Dennis Anderson is a long-time waterfowl alarmist. In the mid-80's it was illegal harvest in Louisiana that was driving waterfowl populations down, and he did a big piece that generated enough donations to buy a helicopter and send it to LE in Louisiana to "save the ducks". In the early-90's he was part of the "we're killing too many ducks" crowd and implored the USFWS to close the season (as did Delta Waterfowl) to "save the ducks". This is more of the same.

We use the same data to set the waterfowl seasons now as we always have. There are planes/observers in the air and crews on the ground to estimate the Bpop and ponds. You can read their reports yourself at www.flyways.us while they conduct the largest, most scientifically sound wildlife survey on the planet. The July brood survey was discontinued nearly 30 years ago because it didn't provide any additional value for the season-setting process, but we still use the pond counts affected by the drought.

The only thing new in the article is that we set the seasons using past year's data now. But that is because of limitations in federal law making (NEPA compliance, public comment periods, and review by federal Solicitor's Office) that we used to be able to short-cut but have faced legal challenges. Canada has set seasons a year in advance for decades, and now they set them for 2 years at a time. And as we all know, duck populations have never responded to changes in hunting regulations, much less in 1 year, so is it really a big deal?

The real BS in the article is that 1) some waterfowl managers are considering being done with harvest regulations altogether because they don't influence waterfowl populations and 2) that we continue to set liberal seasons to keep hunters in the field. First, it's only hunting regulations within the historic bounds that we know have little effect on populations. We have no experience with unlimited or completely closed seasons, so no manager anywhere thinks we should get rid of hunting regulations. Second, we now have firm evidence that liberal hunting regulations don't keep hunters in the field, and that hunter satisfaction increases with their kill until you get to 4 ducks; that 5th or 6th duck doesn't lead to any real increase in satisfaction. So why a bag limit of 6?

Because it's scientifically defensible, that's why.

Lastly, you all know the score ..... large-scale population estimates/habitat conditions do NOT dictate local hunting success. It seems that nothing is working FOR us in Louisiana, but many forces are working AGAINST us. Coastal wetland loss, loss and emigration of rice agriculture, advances(changes) in agricultural practices, climate change, invasive aquatics, etc. are all reducing the attractiveness and capacity of Louisiana habitats to support waterfowl. Some, like climate change and agricultural practices, are driving similar changes in birds wintering further north in Russia, Europe, the Middle East ..... everywhere in the northern hemisphere. I'm sometimes surprised at the ducks I continue to count from the plane every fall/winter, and what we have is still pretty special.

Sorry for the long-winded rant, but the "rules" for setting the season are clear, and the data is the same as it's always been. I'm going to a flyway meeting in August, and using the BPop, ponds, harvest, and banding data, we are going to set the framework for the 2018-19 season. I'll be giving a presentation on that and other Waterfowl Section stuff to the Commission the first Thursday in September.