re: Have the good ole days of duck hunting become a thing of the past.

The biologist they were talking to really opened my eyes about how much the hunter affects the numbers we see every year. Like he said, when the numbers were high, the numbers of duck killed by hunters had little effect on overall numbers returning to nest. These days, it seems to be having a huge impact. Also the fact of keeping the duck season open until the end of January has really added to the problem. According to him, after a hen’s mate has been killed, it may take up to 30 days for her to find another mate. This delays her ability to prepare for the migration back, which decreases her chances to actually surviving the trip back. This added to the millions of acres of lost habitat, and a counting system that was developed in the 50’s has not helped determine what the numbers actually are.

I started hunting as a kid when we had the point system. I went through the 30/3, and I remember there being way more ducks back then. Just in the last 10 years, I’ve seen numbers drop off dramatically here in North Arkansas. I would consistently shoot 3 cases of shells every year. I just opened my third box yesterday. I am willing to go back to more conservative numbers of days and limits if we could get back a fraction of the ducks we used to have..