Time to talk about ducks

[BOGSTER]

Could you elaborate?

We’ve screwed up tremendously.

Training a highly migratory bird, designed to move large distances in search of food, into sitting in one location feeding them an unnatural gmo grain.
Disrupting, or in many cases, halting their natural cycle.

We’ve developed tools that puts man in any area they can get to.

We’ve set aside tens of millions of unhuntable acres to dump feed for them, so they won’t have to migrate.


You tell me.

Was the hunting better overall when we let wild ducks be wild, and hunted them in their natural areas, or is it better now?

[Jay]

Numbers are way down where I hunt in Hartwell GA. Maybe over 50% down on all species. I also just got back from hunting in Montana. While we killed birds, it was very slow with highs in the upper 40s each day and no snow cover.

[trkykilr]

I was in AR for a couple days last week. Slick McCollums has been awful. Way way down. My buddy who guides there has put up 8 zeroes this year, and they are down over 700 birds from last year, which was down. Lost Island is down about 200, but they only hunt 2 groups daily, and are lower pressure.

People with land and money have decided to hold waterfowl and allocate their resources to holding waterfowl. Those people are holding and shooting waterfowl.

I don’t really hunt big ducks in SC, nor have I for years. I shoot wood ducks every now and then.

[BEAR]

I was down in the Palm Bay area of Florida back in mid December. Sat on an airboat on top a levee for about an hour and a half, watching miles of sky for ducks near and at sunset. Nothing. Not a single duck. Did see a pair of Mottled Ducks on the way back to the airboat clubhouse and dock. I had hunted Florida with this same guy who operated the airboat back 10 years ago. We hunted this same general area. Limits were had everyday. Two things have greatly impacted him and the areas he hunts. Invasive willows, planted by man to help with soil retention, have choked out the natural habitat, and massive neighborhood developments have sprung up everywhere. They all have retention ponds and “natural areas” where the waterfowl are fed, admired, and not shot at or had boats ran at them. He said a lot of ducks had then and still today bypass us along with his areas to go further south to the STA’s in south Florida.

When I was in Chestertown, Maryland a few years ago hunting geese in a soybean field. A big cold front had been in there a week prior. The Chester River was froze solid. It was just opening up when I went up. That morning ducks were pouring into this pond in the woods all morning. You could hear a faint sound of a generator running. I asked the guy I was hunting with what was the deal with all the ducks. He said it was a corn pond set up with an ice eater for the ducks to imprint on. Said the guy never hunts it, but likes to hold birds so no one else can hunt them.

Duck Dynasty, and social media have ruined duck hunting too. The Robertson’s may have made millions by popularizing duck hunting with their show, but they have increased the “Heybo’s” tenfold. Too many kids can get ahold of their parent’s credit cards and make their trucks and SUV’s do the Carolina Squat, buy mud boats, Jon boats, etc and go out and rip through the habitats of waterfowl, with no knowledge of really what they’re doing, what duck hunting is about, how to read a duck, nothing. They high five and post pictures of a few dead ducks, get 100 or so likes on Instagram, and go out every chance they get. Meanwhile the ducks figure out quickly, feed at night, rest during the day. Coastal ducks will go sit on the ocean, flying out of the marshes well before first light. That or they take up refuge in refuges or HOA’s where they are safe. Maybe some duck numbers have dwindled some, yes. Scaup in particular have been up and down for years now.

I don’t think ducks are disappearing like the quail, I think they are just adapting to man, and the positives and negatives we throw at them.

[BCR3]

Haven't hunted in SC all year. We lost our little upstate woodie hole when my buddy decided to sell his land in late October. Did make a trip to Missouri and Ark over a few days. Full moon screwed us. Ducks were stacked up in the hole at night and right before legal would pile out to a refuge across the river. Did have a decent Ringer beatdown and shot 18 one morning and then got skunked the next day in Ark. Only saw a few groups and they were high flyers. Land owner said he had plenty of ducks early and then around Christmas they dissapeared.

[LCO]

I believe some of the problem is the specific hunter not the birds or the land, I've seen plenty of people killing ducks, I have also seen people claiming duck hunting is dead and that there are no ducks in SC. We've shot 3 or 4 of different woodie holes and its been better than it usually is. If you expect much more out of SC you've probably got an impoundment or are just too optimistic.

[JABIII]

Part of our crew went to the vaunted Habitat Flats. Plenty of food and water. Ducks, not so much. Can confirm that the lunches were inedible as we were told here years ago...

[LabLuvR]

Don't know if it's true but I hear the famed HoneyBrake isn't doing too well either. There only a small handful of people I know from MO to La who have had a decent year. The rest have taken an ass beating worse than last year if that's possible. In my mind it will remain that way until/if there is a blizzard in the Dakotas and on downward.

[JABIII]

If you expect much more out of SC you've probably got an impoundment or are just too optimistic.

This isn't so much about SC. This is about everywhere East of the Pacific Flyway. The rest of the country seems to be headed down the same path as SC did 20 years ago.

Will a few places still kill ducks? Sure. I am trying to get an overall picture of what is going on.

Not so much the WHY. Nobody can answer that. Theories from snow cover to Canada hunting all get blown away time after time. The only constant is that the duck hunting is getting worse not better in the overall scheme...

[Highstrung]

I'm not sure why they couldn't at least serve mediocre food, that shit is unacceptable. it's like they don't even know who they're catered to.

[Sportin' Woodies]

The internet killed duck hunting

[LabLuvR]

The only reason I think it has gotten worse over the last two years or so for me personally is because of a lack of weather. Prior to that I had some damn good OOS hunts!

[Elcid_Fowler]

JAB - what are the local bird counts like your way?

Like many have mentioned up to mid-December the year was not trending terrible in the piedmont of NC (low sample size but a trend nonetheless) and NC coastal regions. Coastal impoundments whether wets oil or planted seem to be holding birds but they are not new birds. What I've been told is they've scaled back shooting impoundments since mid-Jan to preserve the birds here and not run them off. I've also witnessed an increase trend in "rest impoundments" on these places. Not that they haven't existed historically by a few smart land owners but the competitive nature of all hunters has trickled into those land owners not willing to set aside a large portion of their environment for imprinting and resting. I can't vouch as I've not been in them since then but I don't have a reason to question the intel. Public coastal marshes are hit or miss depending on weather. But the population of birds are off the impoundments and are only coming out when it's blowing 15+. I haven't looked at any bird counts recently along NC to see if the Redheads and normal big number birds have come down yet or not. I'm guessing not though just by what my gut says...

Wood ducks seemed to get out of dodge around the piedmont when we had that cold week of weather in December and now that the deer hunters are banging away at them since Jan 1.

[Elcid_Fowler]

This isn't so much about SC. This is about everywhere East of the Pacific Flyway. The rest of the country seems to be headed down the same path as SC did 20 years ago.

Will a few places still kill ducks? Sure. I am trying to get an overall picture of what is going on.

Not so much the WHY. Nobody can answer that. Theories from snow cover to Canada hunting all get blown away time after time. The only constant is that the duck hunting is getting worse not better in the overall scheme...

What is the historical waterfowl hunter numbers saying? Hunting license sales is one thing but any sources of data that show waterfowl hunter numbers?

[mud ugh]

I jumped out of my comfort zone and went way out west this year and did well considering I didn’t know squat about the area. I suspect some of the success was due to lucking out and catching the weather just right though.

As for my preferred area here, it only seems to get worse and worse. Even relatively undisturbed creeks I could count on for a wood duck or two are now getting ran through on a regular basis because of a lack of ducks elsewhere. The biggest issue I’m seeing in my little corner of the state is pressure. I’ve packed up from hunting on several occasions to go scout only to abort that plan because a mud boat full of kids blasted through the area I’m in and I know they’ve done the same to every other area I planned to look at. This problem is being compounded by the fact that normal school isn’t in session because of the pandemic.

I keep telling myself we’re just in a slump and it will get better, but then I look at my notes from past years and realize that I’ve been lying to myself for nearly a decade now. Sure there were some great hunts sprinkled in there, but it’s getting increasingly hard to keep at it and keep looking for most of the time nothing. The writing is on the wall as much as I hate to say it. Until pressure is controlled or larger areas have something attractive to ducks to spread out the pressure, duck hunting is going to go by the wayside for the average public land hunter in SC.

[Slaya]

Early season was fantastic. Had tons of BW teal, GW teal, ringnecks, gadwalls, and plenty of wood ducks. After that, its tapered off. Had one fairly good hunt so far this second season, even shot some bluewings. Got one pond holding a heap of birds, but its a newer pond, so they're getting a pass, for now. Three ponds are eaten out already. Another pond is just picking up some ducks, rice pond that was flooded late, around Thanksgiving. May be the most food I've ever seen in that one. Have not traveled since I broke my leg, so not much help there. Our little farm pond is holding a fair number of ringnecks for the first time in several years. Woodies and teal seem to have booked it, and not much has replaced them. I haven't hunted in two weeks now, not seeing enough to get too worked up over. Got a little swamp that is full of Woodies we may shoot up soon. Currently out of ducks, doves, and quails in the freezer, so something needs to happen in the next few weeks.

[Ghetto]

The sport has become more monetized, and sought after by "clout chasing" instagrammers nowadays.

People are finding ways to kill them this year like any other, but the future outlook is grim in my opinion, as the exploitation we have seen in South Carolina and Arkansas is spreading.

[JABIII]

He said it was a corn pond set up with an ice eater for the ducks to imprint on. Said the guy never hunts it, but likes to hold birds so no one else can hunt them.

I don’t think ducks are disappearing like the quail, I think they are just adapting to man, and the positives and negatives we throw at them.

But I know places with unlimited budgets on the coast, here, up and down this flyway, and on the Mississippi Flyway that do exactly that. Some for many years. They report less and less and less each year to the point that it isn't even worth driving out to watch...

[Rubberhead*]

I've had an odd season but I always do since I changed up the way I hunt. The oddest hunt ended up with an 8-toed greenehead, two ringnecks, a wigeon and a white-winged scoter from 200 miles inland. I really didn't go into that one expecting to kill a white-wing.

[JABIII]

Scoter stew?