Blackbellied Whistling Duck Season

[cajunwannabe]

Louisiana was allowed to open a BBWD only season in October. For anyone looking to harvest one, there is no shortage of them. I believe it's 10/3-10/11

I was in S La last week working on our camp and shot this. October is probably the best time for cast and blast too.

Turn up the volume and you can hear them calling. They tolerate a LOT of human interference, as you can tell. LOL

[pluffmudder]

Im going to start pushing for a season here too. Theyre everywhere around here but typically gone before the opener.

[Rubberhead*]

I've heard that the daily bag limit is going to be increased from the previous 1 to something higher. That will be appreciated...

[WNM]

I listened to a podcast about them, and the Louisiana birds don't migrate out of state. They just move to residential/unpressured areas once they get shot up. I think ours, at least some of them, might do the same thing. I pick away at a local group of them that stays year round. This was January 26th a few years ago.

Despite (possibly) adjusting to pressure quickly, they certainly aren't smart at first. I could wiped out the group that came into this cypress slough. They are slow to get up and hesitant to leave a member behind.

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[Calibogue]

It's amazing how they have colonized New areas is rapidly as they have. I've had them in Hampton County about 10 years but they're not thick on me like other places. I've killed a couple the last two seasons. I was up on the Cape Fear just out of Wilmington a few weeks ago and saw hundreds of them dry feeding in a freshly planted cornfield.

[cajunwannabe]

They are crazy adaptable to new areas and people. My buddies send me videos of both parents walking ducklings down the street in New Orleans suburbs

LDWF put trackers on them. They noticed BBWD's were traveling around 6-8 knots on the MS river. They were riding grain ships downriver feeding off waste grain on the decks of the ships. Once the ship hit open water they'd fly back upriver and ride another ship down. LOL

I like having them around camp. They're like pets until the shooting starts.

[loud1]

I see them in belle isle in gtown throughout the warmer months. I never notice them in the winter. I figured they leave typically.

[dirtnap]

I've seen more this year than I ever have. They are everywhere. In people's yards and ponds east of 17. I saw probably 60 in one drove the other day in a pond. They seem to get gone before duck season from what I have seen.

[BOGSTER]

They may seem “everywhere” in the summer, but there really aren’t that many of them in SC.
I can show you a dozen places in August where 200+ hang out stretching from Georgetown to Beaufort, but overall there’s not a bunch of them.
Most are gone by the first week of duck season, and the few isolated groups that do winter here could easily be wiped out if the private lands they winter on decided to target them.

They are dumb as rocks and easily patterned.

I’d bet less than 3000 fully winter in SC, and those that do fly the same route everyday.
It wouldn’t take long to drive that down to nothing.

[Catdaddy]

They are dumb as rocks and easily patterned.

I’d bet less than 3000 fully winter in SC, and those that do fly the same route everyday.
It wouldn’t take long to drive that down to nothing.

When I was about 20, we got drawn for Bear Island. A group of Fulvous Tree ducks locked up on a group of hunters across the marsh. They killed 3. The survivors flew to the next group, locked up and took a beating. The two remaining came our way and locked up as soon as they saw our spread.
We killed the last two. The biologists were pissed.

Tree ducks are dumb as rocks.


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[willk]

Im going greenfishing here shortly. We usually see a good many. There's normally several hundred around the start of duck season.

[willk]

Saw around 30 yesterday but didnt cover most of the area they use.

[cajunwannabe]

BBWD was reported on upper Lake Murray this past week. Sure hope to see more soon.

[pluffmudder]

They are a lot more plentiful in the Lowcountry than they used to be.

[Highstrung]

I've got as much desire to shoot dumb ducks as I do to kill a limit of Canada geese or sea ducks. Heck, I see them on bodies of water up here. I have heard they eat good.

[willk]

They do eat good. The ones I have killed don't seem to pluck well though.

[Highstrung]

That's what I've heard.. I saw a group even north of Wateree, same system, but other name last year. I'm not fond of the idea of an early season, at least up here, for the same reasons as early teal up this way.

[Rubberhead*]

They do eat good. The ones I have killed don't seem to pluck well though.

The hardest thing I've ever tried to pluck was a swan. Tree "ducks" are actually just small swans so that makes sense.

BTW - the things that separate ducks from geese and swans...in ducks 1) the sexes are plumed differently, 2) the voices are different and 3) the males play no role in brood rearing. Tree "ducks" break all of these rules but they are still called "ducks" because they're small. But, the scientific genus is "Dendrocygna" which actually means "tree swan"...

Whoops - sorry I nerded out - I did a lot of studying when I was first trying to kill a Black-bellied Tree Swan...

[Highstrung]

I was going to nerd a little and get into coots, but they're not ducks either.

[fro]

Have plenty in my back yard pond year round. Dumb as rocks is an understatement.