re: Fascinating Duck Study on Pressure

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Quality waterfowl hunting is more dependent on weather, conditions and presence of targets than any hunting.

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This is your opinion. Some have other opinions. Howard Miller WMA is open only 2 days a week and is draw only. They have birds and people are killing limits. They have been doing this since the 1st split. There is minimum pressure though.

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Another one planted crop flooded is near rolling fork

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They have some good WMAs there. Old catfish farms that they plant and flood

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This is your opinion. Some have other opinions. Howard Miller WMA is open only 2 days a week and is draw only. They have birds and people are killing limits. They have been doing this since the 1st split. There is minimum pressure though.

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Looked at Howard Miller WMA and it looks like the state of Mississippi has a recipe that could followed in other areas to provide quality duck hunts to at least some public land hunting. Those types of situations are as vital as private and public refuges for feeding, roosting and loafing areas. I am curious though, what is the situation as far as public land not on WMAs, particularly on the river and bayous etc. I suspect it being in the south and therefore heaven it is not overly regulated...and, if a person is bent on doing so could find some areas to hunt where they could consider conditions etc. That would be the best of both worlds....high qaulity areas like the WMA and places where a person could go on a Thursday morning after a good front passes through on Wednesday night AND options in those areas to consider wind etc. That is truly rare in my experience....there are a lot of places like the WMA across the country and they are vitally important BUT they do not address the fact that usually there is an awful lot of suitable habitat on land owned by the public in the same general area which is closed or similarly regulated as the WMA.

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Missouri has high quality public duck hunting, and lots of it. They limit the pressure by rotating open days and obviously having limited blinds etc.

The biggest issue is that the draws (if I remember correctly) don't happen ahead of time. I think it's like at 4 am or something. So people have leases in the area. And they show up for the WMA draws at 4 am. And if they get drawn they hunt public. If they don't get drawn or if they don't like their draw or whatever, then they have to hit the road for Plan B and try to get to their leases by daylight.

But overall it is a well regarded experience. The state spends a ton of money on it every year

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I wonder what the level of experience of those who think highly of the experience is? Could be pretty high, there are some fantastic public hunting opportunities across the country...but it could also be a matter of many having a good time who aren't overly experienced. I used to hunt near a COE impoundment on a WMA and I thought duck hunting could not get any better until I made it to Arkansas which lead me to ask "if it can be this much better how good can it get"....

I am also curious about the number of days that birds are scarce at any of these places where established blinds are hunted 2 days a week regardless of conditions...because I am skeptical that they can produce birds without weather, short of woodies and, depending on where in the country they are, other residents, and if they are hunted on Wednesdays and Saturdays and a front moves through Saturday night how many of them have a pretty good pass shooting shoot on Wednesday morning and then almost no action the rest of that day or Saturday? I know most people are of the opinion that a dead duck is a dead duck but real quality duck hunting involves decoying birds which generally means being kind of where they want to be AND being well concealed...not usually possible in these types of situations because the blinds are in the same place year after year and there is so much foot traffic on Wednesdays and Sundays that the trampled vegetation around them looks like someone spray painted them to identify the blinds from the air. I know it makes the hunting easier for the novice or semi experienced hunter but it does not increase the quality.

In my opinion high quality waterfowl hunting means doing the work myself, from scouting to decoy placement and concealing myself to calling and finally shooting. It also requires being a decent distance away from other groups hunting. I would rather shoot a ring neck that decoyed into my spread because I set up properly than pass shoot a limit of fat mallards that just happened to fly close enough to me to get a shot at them. I am just as happy not firing a shot and watching the sun rise if I am more or less alone and not close enough to other hunters to hear their conversations. This is entirely possible on public land...I have done it many times across the nation. It is getting harder and harder to do with more and more hunters being forced into smaller and smaller areas while vast areas of suitable habitat is off limits by regulation.

Finally the entire check in thing. I don't do it anymore. I have many times in the past and have had some fantastic shoots. It just ain't worth the trouble in my opinion. Even being drawn prior to the day of the hunt usually requires setting up at a time that is convenient for the managers and in an small area designated by the same people. It just ain't my cup of tea...I would rather lie on a mudflat on a COE lake with the water dropped for the winter and decoy ring necks and scaup, with the occasional red head or can, than be involved with checking into an area again. Each to his own but there is enough space for all of us...they just have to allow us to hunt the land that belongs to all of us.

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Most of those are bone dry and aren’t ever planted Most aren’t even manipulated for moist soil plants anymore.

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I haven't been to the old Ouachita WMA refuge on 15 in a few years. I guess the entire complex is now Russell Sage. Truth be known, I have been going to that place with my camera for the better part of 30 years. Taken some outstanding shots. Typically I walk in from the tower a good ways and if there is any kind of recent rain there will typically be water where I go. Like you said, I don't think the place has been flooded conventionally in years, maybe decades, and there is zero management for food. The place is strictly a safety zone with water. With that being said, I have kinda patterned the ducks during duck season in that place. They pretty much sit there all day except for very early and very late. Now the Mallards do get up to work the woods at Sage around mid morning but they predominately sit there unless a hawk or eagle gets them up, but they rarely leave that side of 15. Some get up to go feed right before sunup but by 0900-1000 they are settled back in which kinda jives with success on the farms across the street. Around mid afternoon they start moving to feed again and then will return right at dark. Once the season gets well underway they start going nocturnal and do not leave at all during the day.

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Could someone explain to me what AwgustaDawg is actually wanting?

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Very simple....I would like for wildlife managers and regulators to allow American citizens to use land that belongs to American citizens which is suitable for duck hunting (safe, proper habitat etc.) when that land is NOT being specifically managed for quality hunts (ie planted crops, designated blinds/areas, limited access etc.). If the area is owned by the people and it is safe to hunt and there are birds using it and it is not in some kind of management program to improve hunter experience it should be open to hunting. I know it is an incredibly radical idea and is especially so for public land waterfowl hunters but if we own the land and are paying for it and the state or federal government is not specifically managing it it should be open to hunting. As a group too many of us are conditioned to think that management practices are in the best interest of the resource or the hunter when in fact many are simply the cheapest and most convenient practice...just don't let people hunt it. Trust me, I have been taken to task manty times from public land duck hunters when expressing the opinion that our land should be open to us for our use...I can't answer why it is but it certainly has something to do with suffering from the delusion that government can't be wrong.

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But it is managed to improve hunter experience by having refuges for the ducks to go. They are getting shot at all the way from Canada to the Gulf and farther. Almost half a year they are getting shot at by hunters. I think people don’t realize there is a chance that you won’t be able to kill a duck on public land in a decade if shite doesn’t change. It isn’t the 90’s anymore.

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Some of it is indeed managed to improve hunter experience. That is vitally important. Some of it is done because the regulators do not have the resources to police the areas. All I am saying is that areas that are not being managed AT all other than being closed completely should be available to hunters. We do not have the issues in the south that other areas have because frankly we would not stand for it. It is very common out west though...millions of acres of public land that is suitable for duck hunting and holds ducks which are closed to hunting because the regulators have small areas that are easily accessible and easily policed open. Most of those ares do not require ANY managing...they will attract and hold waterfowl regardless of pressure if weather conditions force a migration. Pressure will drive those birds to use different areas in the same general area but that is what scouting and knowing where to hunt under what conditions comes into play. What happens though is hunters are only allowed to hunt in the same spot every time the place is open and that spot has been hunted for years and years. Just let us use our land. Its ours. When it is abused THEN do something to the abuser, not to everyone just because its easy and convenient.

Ms season dates are stupid. The draw system is stupid and for lazy people.

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I know of a refuge a 18 miles from me that doesn’t allow a single person to duck hunt it. There are a bunch of them, even in the South.
I thought like you once, but I wanted them on rotations. Always having refuges where you couldn’t hunt and they could rest, but every 3-5 years switch the ones you could and couldn’t hunt. The ducks would figure out where it was safe, but I’m not convinced that the best management plan is to do that. We can’t just kill all of them just because we can. Some people don’t know the difference between hunting and extermination. I bet you have heard or said it yourself, “Man, back in the day we would kill truck loads of mallards whenever we wanted to. Now, there ain’t no ducks. They are all up North where they are short stopping because of DU.” Well, Maybe those older hunters shouldn’t have been killing truck loads of ducks.

You say it is because of lack of resources, but maybe they are just trying to make sure the ducks have a large enough population to breed.

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I am pretty certain most management is done to ensure there are enough birds to breed. The birds certainly need refuges, especially in the wintering grounds because food can become scarce on the wintering grounds in a hurry and winter is hard under the best of conditions. I am not talking about hunting refuges....I am talking about hunting areas AROUND and in the general area of refuges that are owned by the public but closed to hunting. These areas are not being managed in any meaningful manner other than simply being closed to hunting. Most of these areas would not be overly productive if they were open or not except when conditions were ideal...a good front passing through, for example. They could provide hunting opportunities for some and at times could provide high quality hunts for some...but they are simply closed.

An example of what I am talking about is a vast area of public land and private land leased to the state in the Columbia River Valley in Washington. Area is LOADED with geese. Goose hunting is closed during the regular season on all land, public or private, except for Mondays and Saturdays. Hunters in that area are footing the bill for thousands of acres to hunt, not to mention the Federal areas that are being funded by everyone in the nation. In this same area there are 4 MASSIVE federal refuges and several state refuges not to mention thousands of acres in private ownership that act as refuges. The chances of killing a goose on any of that public land IF it were open any day during the regular season is pretty slim EXCEPT for those rare days when conditions are ideal...limiting that already rare event to 2 days a week means there are almost no geese taken ANYWHERE in the area, private of public land either one. IN the case of snow geese in the area it is well understood that they are a disaster waiting to happen and when it happens it is going to spread to other species...not to mention the pressure their numbers put on the resources...but those areas are closed to ALL hunting because they do not have the resources to police them....their word, not mine, properly. Has nothing to do with management and everything to do with making certain that people are all ganged up where they can keep an eye on them. This is not unusual....I know of several areas in Southern Illinois that is exactly the same, Indiana, Virginia and Maryland, Oregon, California, Colorado....in fact every mountain state has many acres where this practice is common. It is not as common in our area because we wouldn't abide by it if it were but we do have areas around refuges in the south that are simply closed because there are not enough resources to police it...I know of another in one of the best areas of waterfowl numbers in the country in South Carolina. They are numerous. If the land is owned by the public and it is not specifically being managed but is suitable for hunting it should be open to the public. Most of the time those areas would not be overly productive but many hunters would do well on them even with fewer birds by scouting and getting away from crowds and simply working harder. They can't because they are closed.

Refuges are vitally important. The hunting of them should managed in a manner that provides as high a quality experience for hunters as possible. That may mean being flexible on open days depending on conditions. It may mean opening up new areas and closing old ones occasionally. It certainly means maintaining blinds in a proper fashion. It should mean limiting hunters to 10 - 12 shells and checking. Even if it means closing them completely I would trust the biologists to make that call. What should not happen is suitable land that is owned by the public be limited by regulation simply because of a lack of resources. That goes for ALL use of public lands.

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Refuges are vitally important. The hunting of them should managed in a manner that provides as high a quality experience for hunters as possible. That may mean being flexible on open days depending on conditions. It may mean opening up new areas and closing old ones occasionally. It certainly means maintaining blinds in a proper fashion. It should mean limiting hunters to 10 - 12 shells and checking. Even if it means closing them completely I would trust the biologists to make that call. What should not happen is suitable land that is owned by the public be limited by regulation simply because of a lack of resources. That goes for ALL use of public lands.

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the goal of public land ain’t for you to hunt.