re: Beware long read: Young hunter's opinion on down duck season. Blame Mother Nature

I had a 1800 acre lease near Lake Decade for 25 years.For many years our hunting was great and it was unusual not to limit.But we had very high water 4 or 5 years in a row before duck season due to tropical storms and hurricanes.Salt water killed all our food for a number of years, and the ducks never returned.We might kill a few before a strong cold front but we would shoot 'em once and they would be gone. We kept the lease and camp for 8 or 9 years after the hunting went bad because the fishing was so good. From my experience the ducks never returned to a huge area affected by the high salt water for years.

I’m old and have been duck hunting for 50 years....hard core for the last 30+ years.

Your explanation for no ducks in the marshes in Louisiana does not address why there were no ducks in Arkansas. It was the worst year ever here and it has been discussed in the newspaper on a couple of occasions and even on the local news. Arkansas Game and Fish tried sugar coating it at first by saying it will get better later in the season but even they gave up when it became apparent the duck hunting was not going to improve.

I have seen a downward trend in duck numbers over the past 10 years. I think the duck numbers are way down now (similar to the 1970s) but is being downplayed to keep the revenue stream of hunting licenses, stamps, and gear. They do not want to discourage hunters by going back to the 30 day season with a 3 duck limit.

I also believe that increased harvest numbers in the upper flyway are playing a big part. I had an old friend who was on the Wisconsin game commission. He said thousands of duck hunters were now making trips to Canada and the Dakotas to duck hunt. If most kill their 3 day limit of 24, those are ducks that will never migrate. Think about it for a second. Very few people in La spent money going up north even 15 years ago. Now practically everyone I know with the financial means hunts there at sometime. When I went, all 10 hunters at the lodge were from La. Add in the fact that many more thousands from northern states are going due to close proximity and it would be a factor. Compound that with spinning wing decoys being especially effective on juvenile birds and it gets worse.

In your log what location are you focusing on as far as weather conditions? And what parish are you hunting if you don't mind me asking

Is this were we say it's D.U.'s fault.

And the water level of what? just the Mississippi? There are quite a number of smaller rivers in the Miss flyway that were loaded with water this year.

Oh I gotcha. Yea we were talking about that the other day. We were thinking it was rivers further north than Arkansas.

Learn how to use paragraphs

That's not the case either I believe. Bunch of friends made a northern trip to Nebraska. Said it was wild. Just didn't get cold up north baw. Not every year is going to be lights out.

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ricefields

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into crawfish operations

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430,000 acres of rice and 200,000 acres of crawfish and that 200k includes grass and green rice ponds that are not included in the 430k

plus most of those former rice fields in vermillion and Cameron parish are still being hunted and managed for ducks