Post-Season Ramblings - Spring 2026

[Rick]

re: wigeon

Haven't shot them like that since then, though this season I did see some impressive bags of them across the La coast....just not in the greater Delacroix area.

Pains me to think of how many studs we just cleaned, didn't save a single one to be mounted, not that we had much for taxidermy funds at the time either. Plenty pics and memories, though.

Seems like every time I dare to think we might be seeing a wigeon bump it immediately dries up. Wigeon have become such a rarity that JJ, the veteran's weekend guest who's a long time serious waterfowler, apologized for picking a colored-up drake out of a mixed group of the greenheads and sprig we'd been targeting, and I didn't blame him. (Nor did I feel compelled to fuss our new waterfowler, Don, for doubling with drake and, further verboten, hen when I cut him loose on a handful of grays during a longish lull that Sunday.)

[Ducaholic]

Interesting video from from MO conservation department in1963. They mention a lot of the issues we talk about today. Watch all way through to the fall migration.

Enjoyed it Dave

[Duck Engr]

Huge habitat improvements to the north and big reduction to the south. You are getting it from all sides. But hunting is still far better than most places ever were.

Indeed.

To that point, another jarring quote from Brent Birch of same podcast (and same episode cited above), longtime Arky hunter, noted the following in speaking of rating this season versus past ones, etc.

"In the 2005 season, I don't think we killed a duck in January"

That's unfathomable in Louisiana, ever, so it paints the reality that there is indeed a different bar we all uphold state to state. Louisiana's bar is simply that much higher than that of about any other state, hence our fire down this way with the reality of that bar having been lost, or seriously compromised. Others north of us scoff at it, but they really just don't understand.

In fact, the 2005 season was one of the best I've ever seen (yes, even in decimated SE La marshes post-Katrina just three months prior), gadwall and wigeon for days and days. What I'm trying to say is, we are not playing the same game.

kyled124.JPG

Great discussion, thanks all for your interactions/contributions, carry on!

I remember an interview with Pat Pitt years ago where he said “we thought it was all over in the mid 2000s”, so I hold on to some hope that we’ll recover. We’re obviously facing some different challenges now than we were then, though.

[Ducaholic]

Long way to go to get to where things once were. I'm not certain that its even possible any longer given the huge losses sustained on the breeding grounds year after year. Only time will tell

[SpinnerMan]

I think one of the biggest problem for LA is that when you are at the end of the line as everything further up the line improves, no matter what you do, it doesn't matter as much. Most of the birds won't even know you exist.

The southern Illinois Canada goose Mecca holding a million Canada geese went to holding 10's of thousands (a few percent of the heydays). There was no degradation of the habitat at the end of the line, but purely dramatic improvements in quality further up the line.

From google.

While a precise, cumulative total for all Midwest wetland rehabilitations since 2000 is not explicitly aggregated in a single report, data from conservation organizations and federal agencies indicate that hundreds of thousands of acres have been restored, with specific, large-scale projects contributing heavily to this total.
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy
+2
Key statistics and rehabilitation efforts in the Midwest since 2000 include:
USDA/NRCS Initiatives: Nationally, the NRCS has restored nearly 2.9 million acres of wetlands through easement programs, with the Midwest being a primary focus.
Large-Scale Projects:
Glacial Ridge Project (Minnesota): Initiated in 2000, this project involved restoring over 8,000 acres of wetlands (within a 37,000-acre project area).
Emiquon Preserve (Illinois): Initiated in 2000, this project restored 6,000+ acres of farmland into a functioning wetland ecosystem.
Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie (Illinois): The Wetlands Initiative has restored thousands of acres of wetlands at this site, with over 3,376 acres documented by 2021.
Annual Improvements: In 2025 alone, the Nature Conservancy reported approximately 2.5 million acres of lakes and wetlands with improved management in the Midwest.

Since 2000, Ducks Unlimited (DU) has conserved and restored over 1 million acres of wetlands in the Midwest, a region crucial for prairie pothole habitat. In the Great Lakes region alone, over 60,000 acres of wetlands and associated habitats were protected in the past decade. DU's efforts in the U.S. include over 600,000 acres annually.

This trend of wetlands rehabilitation and restoration is not going to reverse, but will continue.

[Ducaholic]

Lots of things working against the Average Joe Deep South Duck Hunter. Our only chance is if BPOP numbers return to historic highs and winters become more consistent in terms of weather systems pushing further southward especially early on in the migration. The AHM/NAWMP driven habitat increases in the heartland is a lot to overcome as Spinnerman indicated. I predicted as much many years ago. Unfortunately, it has come to pass.

[SpinnerMan]

\winters become more consistent in terms of weather systems pushing further southward especially early on in the migration.

We definitely need more consistent winters with more snow. I love and hate being out in the goose pit in late January and watching mallards fly over nonstop for hours.

Love it because I can see more ducks in the air at one time than I often have seen the entire duck season combined.

Hate it because there is nothing I can do but enjoy the show.

Even the geese used to get pushed south of us most winters because of too much snow. Then it would warm up and they would come back. Now we are lucky when they get pushed down to us before it warms up and they bounce back north.

[Darren]

Caught some of this Standard Sportsman episode in my camp travels this weekend:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7issCh ... 0OZc2d1qMg

They note their recent field observations from their areas of Arkansas, the short of it being "the ducks have largely moved out and north, just a few left here and there" to paraphrase, essentially claiming the spring migration is ahead of schedule and the ducks have moved out of southern climes, they're gone.

As my own observations from yesterday note (see log thread), however, the ducks are still very much in many of their winter haunts and their northern trek has only just begun. Mallards in Arkansas moved out to MO and beyond chasing that freeze line?? Sure, I can buy that, probably about right. But we don't exclusively track, nor pursue, mallards, but rather all ducks. Just because you aren't seeing ducks around in Arkansas, doesn't mean there aren't birds to be found anywhere else, which is again a reminder that we are not playing the same game as the Arky or MO contingent.

The end of the episode even laments, by Mr. Short, "It's a tough time to be a duck hunter right now," but that seems a grossly sweeping statement given the success of many top to bottom on the flyway this season. They continue to poke fun at the LA crowd crying foul/fowl. I enjoy their perspective because I also like the insight as to Arky's culture and history, just as we have our own in LA, but plainly their bar is very different than ours.

Was this season best ever? For a few oddly yes, but for most, nowhere close. But for a whole lot, there was success mixed with the challenges......what more could you realistically want? It's hunting, after all.