No guarantee comes with duck-hunting news
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Bob Marshall
Before reading any further, repeat after me: Weather and pressure are the key factors in successful duck hunting.
Now, repeat it one more time.
Good. Now, using a hunter orange Magic Marker, write that sentence on the back of your right hand, on the mirror in your bathroom, on every box of shotgun shells you own, on your shell bucket, and on your retriever's collar. In fact, maybe you should rename the dog "Weather."
OK, finished?
Great, now you're ready to read the following paragraph:
Thanks to a larger number of breeding ponds in Canada and a significant increase in the total number of ducks across the nesting zone, waterfowl production this summer should be higher than last year. Although nothing is final, most waterfowl managers are so optimistic about production and conditions, they expect another season of liberal regulations, which means a 60-day season with a six-duck daily limit for Louisiana and other Mississippi Flyway states.
Now, repeat that first sentence again: Weather and hunting pressure are the key factors in successful duck hunting.
I'm annoying you with that point because, frankly, I'm tired of being annoyed by angry hunters when reports of excellent nesting success are followed by poor hunting seasons. That's become something of a tradition in the past five years because, even as federal waterfowl managers insist duck populations have remained robust, hunting success along the Louisiana coast has been dismal, at best.
Unfortunately, when high expectations based on government studies are followed by disappointment, conspiracy theories abound. The age of the Internet has only made matters worse. In the past few years I've been informed by Internet snoops of all kinds of nefarious plots designed to stop or reshape waterfowl migrations.
For example, one said waterfowl conservation groups were using helicopters to spread tons of corn across the prairies to short-stop ducks. Another claimed to "have read on the Internet" the same group had installed heaters in ponds and lakes across the Midwest to prevent freeze-up. Still others "had seen proof on the Internet" that the feds were actually lying about waterfowl populations to keep millions in management dollars flowing their way.
Certainly, I met my share of conspiracy theorists before the Internet. But they had one thing in common with today's broadband gossips: They always seemed to come out from hiding when duck hunting was slow. And the past five seasons have been fertile ground for the blame game because most coastal waterfowlers have experienced such poor results.
That said, the news from the breeding grounds this summer is still very heartening. Seven of 10 key duck species returned to the nesting grounds in numbers larger than last year, and six of the 10 showed numbers well above the long-term average, a figure that measures these things back to 1955.
And they returned to nesting conditions which, on average, were much better than last year. While there was some serious drought across part of the prime nesting sites in North Dakota, huge areas of Canada that had been dry for several years are now wet and flush with food and cover.
When breeding ducks find that kind of habitat nesting, success typically soars, resulting in much higher production and more ducks flying south in the winter.
But that brings us back to our first sentence, and the impact of weather and hunting pressure.
If we hunted in Canada or North Dakota, weather and pressure wouldn't be such big factors. We'd be hunting where the ducks lived and where there were few other hunters.
But we live at the bottom of the migration route. The speed at which ducks travel that route depends largely on weather conditions along the way. The faster snow and freezing temperatures descend from Canada down the Mississippi Valley, the quicker most species of ducks arrive in our marshes. Unfortunately for us, winter made only brief appearances north of us during the past seven years, resulting in slow, spotty migrations -- and fewer ducks in our ponds.
And that long, slow migration southward has become a gauntlet for ducks. By the time they reach us, they've been dodging steel shot for a thousand miles and several months. Ducks inspecting our decoys in November have been taught a lot by our colleagues from Canada to Arkansas. They may leave the breeding grounds as bird brains, but they arrive in our marshes as avian Einsteins.
None of this means good news from the breeding grounds isn't important. It's welcome because it tells us the billions we're spending to ensure the future of our hunting heritage is having some impact. And the larger the fall flight, the greater the odds we'll see ducks in the fall.
So even hunters on the Louisiana coast should be happy about the news. But they should never forget that first sentence: Weather and hunting pressure are the key factors in successful duck hunting.
. . . . . . .
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539.
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