Things aren’t like they use to be

[Duckman#1]

https://www.greenhead.net/post/13659...1S9tkBLUnzV_5k

[BOGSTER]

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times.

We screwed up duck hunting when we started flooding crops for them.

We’ve manipulated an animal to be something it’s not in our pursuits to hunt it.

God designed migratory birds to fly south for the winter.

When they get to the wintering grounds they are supposed to utilize a food source until it’s gone, and move to the next one.

There are grown men that truly believe that when they plant and flood corn they are doing what’s best for waterfowl.

That is effing retarded.

[Quackhead22]

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times.

We screwed up duck hunting when we started flooding crops for them.

We’ve manipulated an animal to be something it’s not in our pursuits to hunt it.

God designed migratory birds to fly south for the winter.

When they get to the wintering grounds they are supposed to utilize a food source until it’s gone, and move to the next one.

There are grown men that truly believe that when they plant and flood corn they are doing what’s best for waterfowl.

That is effing retarded.

Tell us oh wise one..what is your answer?

Seriously though. You are given the magic wand…what is the answer. What, in your mind, “fixes” the issue? We’ve beat this horse to absolute death. But I’ve yet to read or hear any reasonable answer to the problem. Only bloviating about corn ponds and mud motors and rubber heads. That’s not to say that those things are not a problem. But let’s not cast aspersions without having a definitive answer to the issue!

Bear in mind this is coming from someone who planted and flooded close to 100ac of crop land for ducks and did not see the numbers we had hoped for. I’m not against flooded crops but I’m also not delusional.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BOGSTER]

Tell us oh wise one..what is your answer?

Seriously though. You are given the magic wand…what is the answer. What, in your mind, “fixes” the issue? We’ve beat this horse to absolute death. But I’ve yet to read or hear any reasonable answer to the problem. Only bloviating about corn ponds and mud motors and rubber heads. That’s not to say that those things are not a problem. But let’s not cast aspersions without having a definitive answer to the issue!

Bear in mind this is coming from someone who planted and flooded close to 100ac of crop land for ducks and did not see the numbers we had hoped for. I’m not against flooded crops but I’m also not delusional.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ban all flooding of row crops for waterfowl utilization.
This does not include ratoon crop rice.
This does not effect hunting on naturally flooded ag fields.

If the good lord dumps 6 inches of rain and it floods your field, have yourself a good time while the water lasts.

Ban ALL feeding of waterfowl on federal refuges. State refuges, and sanctuaries.

This does not include MSM.

Try it for 10 years and let’s see what happens.

I’d bet your boss’s property that nature would take care of itself and waterfowl hunting will improve.

Will your boss and his buddies still whack the snot out of em over MSM?

Maybe, maybe not.

Will the AF dry up entirely because we stopped feeding them corn?
I think it’s downright silly to believe that.

Ducks will do what ducks do, and they’ll feed wild the way God intended.



I’ve only posted these very same ideas a dozen times on here.

[swampknob]

This does not include ratoon crop rice.

I bet there wont be many famers flood irrigating rice in the future. Seems like row crop rice is gaining steam.

[PBiz]

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times.

We screwed up duck hunting when we started flooding crops for them.

We’ve manipulated an animal to be something it’s not in our pursuits to hunt it.

God designed migratory birds to fly south for the winter.

When they get to the wintering grounds they are supposed to utilize a food source until it’s gone, and move to the next one.

There are grown men that truly believe that when they plant and flood corn they are doing what’s best for waterfowl.

That is effing retarded.

Pressure makes birds not migrate..

And I don’t think anyone that floods corn thinks they are doing what’s best for waterfowl..

They want to kill ducks..

[drwilly]

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times.

We screwed up duck hunting when we started flooding crops for them.

We’ve manipulated an animal to be something it’s not in our pursuits to hunt it.

God designed migratory birds to fly south for the winter.

When they get to the wintering grounds they are supposed to utilize a food source until it’s gone, and move to the next one.

There are grown men that truly believe that when they plant and flood corn they are doing what’s best for waterfowl.

That is effing retarded.

so much conflation and leaps in logic in one post. folks have been planting and flooding on the east coast for decades and ducks have been cyclical up and down w a multitude of factors. development and urban sprawl imo has way more to do w it. some of our best years have been w just a cut and burn of natural things and some have been w a "good" 30 acres of corn on a 120 acre impoundment. i think man has way less to do w it than we try to think. kinda like anthropogenic climate change. are we really that arrogant?

[BOGSTER]

so much conflation and leaps in logic in one post. folks have been planting and flooding on the east coast for decades and ducks have been cyclical up and down w a multitude of factors. development and urban sprawl imo has way more to do w it. some of our best years have been w just a cut and burn of natural things and some have been w a "good" 30 acres of corn on a 120 acre impoundment. i think man has way less to do w it than we try to think. kinda like anthropogenic climate change. are we really that arrogant?

Sure it’s leaps.

Let’s look at what we do know.

Pre 1990 we had ducks public and private lands in the AF.

How many ducks, I have no clue, and don’t trust .gov data farther than I can spit tobacco.

Let’s just say there were enough around for everyone to be pretty happy.

There were few corn ponds from Maryland to South Carolina. How many, I have no clue, but a fraction of what exists today.

Is it a stretch to say that the majority of Waterfowl wintering in the Deep South did so on natural habitat?
I don’t know that to be true, but I would assume so.

Assuming that - we have to at least consider the possibility that row crop fields play a major role in the degradation of duck populations state by state.

Surely the MASSIVE conglomerate of corn fields in Hyde and Dare counties have had an effect on waterfowl wintering in SC.

And I believe people minimize the effect Marion and Moultrie had on wintering populations state wide.

We eradicated 50ish thousand acres of food in less than a decade.

Not just hydrilla, but all the other native SAV that was in the system pre hydrilla.

Everyone always asks the question - why did the ducks come pre hydrilla?

Don’t ever let anyone tell you it was for damn acorns in Sparkleberry.

There has been SAV on Marion and Moultrie since the early 1950s and we know this as fact.

My point is there are certainly a swath of reasons why ducks don’t come to the Deep South anymore and in my opinion it has more to do with millions of acres of corn flooded north of us. The nail in the coffin (for SC) was our state intentionally destroying 50k acres of habitat in the middle of the corn pond boom.

[GMAC]

Then they drop the water the day after the season ends.

[coonsqualler01]

Interesting read for sure, thanks DM.

[Gregory]

Since when is flooding corn a "bonafide agricultural practice"?

[JABIII]

That's like reading SCDUCKS in 1999.

They.

Are.

Not.

There.

To.

Migrate.

Unless someone found that super secret hole north of us that is holding all those hundreds of thousands of missing mallard ducks, stop going backwards with this nonsense and let's get to figuring out why...

[BOGSTER]

That's like reading SCDUCKS in 1999.

They.

Are.

Not.

There.

To.

Migrate.

Unless someone found that super secret hole north of us that is holding all those hundreds of thousands of missing mallard ducks, stop going backwards with this nonsense and let's get to figuring out why...

They are there.

Not nearly as many as your DU magazine fall migration report claims, but it takes a special kind of stupid to believe that’s even remotely accurate.

They are sitting on planted refuges, sanctuaries, private clubs, and anywhere else we have “created habitat” for them.

In the Atlantic Flyway, we destroy all natural habitat, build false habitat, force them to an unnatural food source where we can congregate them for hunting, then we hunt them twice a week, and grown ass men stand around campfires and ponder why there are no ducks and why the remaining few night feed.

It’s a special kind of stupid.

Thank God above that the American Black Duck stands his ground in the salt marsh.

[JABIII]

They are sitting on planted refuges, sanctuaries, private clubs, and anywhere else we have “created habitat” for them.

OK. Where? Those Atlantic Flyway refuge counts should be available. It was easy to see by the 90's. Everyone was hollering then "They have them all". Well maybe, but ALL wasn't close to the numbers that used to overwinter at our own Refuge before Glen Bond killed it...

[BOGSTER]

OK. Where? Those Atlantic Flyway refuge counts should be available. It was easy to see by the 90's. Everyone was hollering then "They have them all". Well maybe, but ALL wasn't close to the numbers that used to overwinter at our own Refuge before Glen Bond killed it...

Think of how many more impoundments have been built in the AF since 1990.

And in the 3 years I spent in the USFWS truck counting waterfowl on SNWR, it’s that the .gov’s methods are no different than a 3rd grader guessing how many gumball’s are in Mrs. Wilson’s mason jar.

[BuckyTownsend]

Man with money can put water on corn but a poor man can’t put corn in the water

[Tater]

https://www.greenhead.net/post/13659...1S9tkBLUnzV_5k

Great read, thanks for posting that.

[swampknob]

I read a study the other day on flippy ducks killing all the young birds and messing up imprinting. Don’t believe it but it was an interesting point of view.

I don’t know where the birds are, guess I’ll just keep going further northwest.

[SCswampCAT]

I read a study the other day on flippy ducks killing all the young birds and messing up imprinting. Don’t believe it but it was an interesting point of view.

I don’t know where the birds are, guess I’ll just keep going further northwest.

Post a link if you can find it.

[Sportin' Woodies]

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Is this indicative of every state?

Why are we funding TOMO? Why are people obsessed with recruiting new duck hunters?