re: Second Split Opener Sucked

I cant speak to what's going on on the Gulf Coast but it seems like this has been happening for several seasons at least??? Its always been tougher to hunt waterfowl the further south you went because young birds are dumb birds and by the time they get to the Gulf Coast they know more about calls and decoys than the manufacturers. Waterfowlers in the Mid West and just south of the Canadian border take issue with this until they experience it first hand and giving it a go in the deep south without an outfitter and private leased and properly manager waterfowl heavens.

That being said I witnessed something the last 2 years I was fortunate enough to hunt New Mexico which I would bet has an impact on the hunting along the Gulf Coast and that is mud motors. Waterfowl hunting in SE New Mexico is marginal at best and only manageable at all due to the lack of pressure. It can be fantastic and the birds can be easy to decoy because there is NO pressure on them...not light pressure but NONE. But the last 2 seasons I hunted the area there was one group of 4 hunters who had a direct drive shallow water boat....and those idiots not only hunted EVERY day of the season....at least one of the 4 but usually all of them PLUS a couple of more....and by hunting I mean they would set up at about shooting light, wait for the morning flight which in New Mexico only lasts about 30 minutes...and then they would get in the boat, station how ever many of them there were along likely points where traveling ducks would be marginally within ranged....and proceed to drive that damn boat through raft after raft if ducks loafing....it was impressive to see thousands of ducks taking flight and the shooting noise was horrendous....but after a few applications of this madness birds would simply leave and not come back....and wouldn't be there during the rest of the season because there weren't birds loafing when migrant birds passed through so they kept going. Luckily I was willing to drive a little further and hunt an area that was harder to access...some folks would have said down right dangerous but risk tolerance I am comfortable with....but those 4 guys and that one surface drive boat destroyed by the second week of 2 seasons in a row what had been an important loafing area for about 50 years in an area where water is almost un known. Multiply this 1000s of times even in an area where water and suitable habitat is plentiful and it is easy to understand this type of pressure may have something to do with declining numbers and birds being increasingly difficult to hunt on the wintering grounds....

Any respectable duck hunter knows better than to hunt the roost but disturbing loafing areas simply to get birds moving is as bad an idea and shallow water boats make it easy for idiots to do just that...harassing waterfowl is against the law but it is almost impossible to make a case....in the case I am talking about in New Mexico the man was well aware of what was going on and warned the idiots that they were not only breaking the law but harming the resource irreperably...but either couldn't or wouldn'y do anything further.

I didn’t duck hunt this weekend, but my dad and brother had 4 guests. Their weekend total was 65 picked up. All 6 hunters (2 blinds) picked up limits Saturday. Sunday they had lots in the air, but were blind shy so they struggled a bit but still got close to limits.

Dramatic difference from last 2 seasons where we just didn’t have birds in the area all season. But nothing like the glory days of the 1980s when I was a kid. Lease is in the Bayou Penchant area.