re: Good duck hunting segment on Paradise Louisiana

I appreciate the kind words. I enjoy the opportunity Paradise Louisiana gives to discuss the good and not-so-good aspects of our duck hunting.

I did finish the coastal transect and Catahoula Lake survey this afternoon after a partial day on Tuesday and not being able to fly yesterday. I'm crunching the numbers for SE LA now and I will get a report out tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, because of tomorrow's holiday, we won't get NW LA flown before the season opens on Saturday. It will be flown next week along with NE LA.

The estimate from SW LA was just under 1 million, which is right about the 5-year average for that region. Someone posted the hot-spots earlier in this thread. Catahoula Lake was the poorest I've ever seen for a November survey where the lake wasn't flooded out. Only 30,000 total birds, and 28,000 of those were pintails. I'm hoping that improves before the 18th.

I expect the SE estimate to be pretty decent. We saw more birds on the line through Delacroix than we've seen in a number of years, and solid numbers on the next line and the line at the mouth of the river. The Venice area wasn't covered up, like I've seen it in the past, but there were good numbers. I was disappointed in the line through the upper Terrebonne marshes. SAV growth seemed down from the past in that area, and we saw nowhere near the ring-necks we hoped to see. But I've been hearing good reports from other areas in SE LA, so I'm hopeful for a good opening weekend.