Things aren’t like they use to be

[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..

[darealdeal]

Some folks don't like him, but there was an interesting debate between Steve Rinella and his brother on this exact issue recently. I think your view is shared by many.

Got a link to that? Would like to give that a listen.

Listening to some podcast and reading research on the issue along with all the genetic research is interesting. You can not just pin point to one reason and say this is why the ducks are not here or there as the many different factors that a duck will move. It is also hard to say the extensive well fare program we have created is not a contributing factor along with night feedings and many other things.... We have manipulated an entire population in regards to "conservation" and preservation. It is hard to not see out influence in the matter and what our own planting and farming has done. Now what can be done about it..... That is another story and I think it will take a lot more from Mexico and Canada to actually have a much more successful program and maybe even moving refuges with alternating sites every few years.....

Just a thought I mean..... They just now recently figured out that flooding trees year after year in the GTRs is bad...... I mean... Does not take a biologist to figure out flooding on a tree for long periods of time would have negative effects every year.

[Remy]

Again. Why are tax dollars going toward hunter recruitment? It's like a college virgin inviting the football team to his party and then wondering why he didn't get lucky with a female

I think it is a catch 22. The available hunting land and game is most certainly dwindling (or at least wide access to it). If we let the number of hunters fall off to be in line with the "available" land/game, we will be a small minority of people that can easily be pushed over in the name of progress.

[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.

[trkykilr]

I’m glad to be on the White Oaks pro staff #chenedeep

[Highstrung]

I don't believe the planting of corn is the problem.. the pressure of planted impoundments have changed over the years. We could dump corn for all I care, and it'll be worthless if the amount of pressure doesn't change. Impoundments have changed over the years, there aren't as many guys holding off. They have clients, they don't have the option. It's my belief that making profits over our resources has fueled the downfall, industry wide.. advertising, tv, social media, bringing in more hunters, and all of the like.

[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.

[PBiz]

If we’re banning flooded corn.. Might as well ban robos and plastic shotguns..

[Duckman#1]

Again. Why are tax dollars going toward hunter recruitment? It's like a college virgin inviting the football team to his party and then wondering why he didn't get lucky with a female

Been asking that for the last few years. Where are they going to hunt in a already crowded environment

[BOGSTER]

I know.

What a crazy world it be to have to hunt ducks in the wild rather than a 80 ac bait pile.

Just imagine the hit Instagram would take. #iwasntabletomakeapile #sunrise #itsnotaboutkilling #itsaboutfriendship

[nitro5x6's]

If we’re banning flooded corn.. Might as well ban robos ..

Be a real positive to make using a mechanical / spinner decoy illegal. IMHO, one of the worst things to ever happen to diminish this sport.

[PBiz]

I don’t like 2 things about flooded corn..

- I don’t have any flooded corn

- I don’t have any flooded corn


Yet…

[PBiz]

I don’t like 2 things about flooded corn..

- I don’t have any flooded corn

- I don’t have any flooded corn


Yet…

#privatelandowner

[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?

[BRR]

It might come as a surprise but if the ducks came here the way they once did, the vast number of ignorant "hunters" we have now would run them off.....

[Sportin' Woodies]

I don't know about science but it's always been gross seeing 22 yr olds with too much hair and their stupid fuckin hats cocked over their eyes while wearing daisy dukes. They're at every boat ramp and all over the internet. Pretty sure none of em have jobs.

[PBiz]

I did see 200 acres of corn in Arkansas this year beside one of our fields that was in beans..

I hunted that field 5 times, limited thrice.. Heard them shoot 6 times

[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.

[2thDoc]

no matter how mad you get, bog, or how much you think you're right....

it doesnt mean you're right.
I think its far more complicated than corn ponds.

[BOGSTER]

with all due respect, no matter how many people agree with that, it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.