Preseason '25-'26

[Rick]

Hate seeing them become regular season staples, in large part due to it's likely effect on their numbers and, consequently, September season. The one time head fed down here, Dave Hall, once called it "a taste of teal" and speculated that it helped take some of the edge off the Cajuns' hunger for duck. Know it helps this old hillbilly get through...

[DComeaux]

I was curious about the start of teal season so did a little research. I didn't hunt the teal seasons in my early years in the marsh and only did so when I got a blind in the AG region about 14 years ago. Blake and I will go out to the blind at LST the weekend before the season opens to see what moves. We may pass on this season. I agree with Rick, if we continue to see low BWT numbers and continue to hold more during the main season we may see an end to this "special season".

"The special teal season in Louisiana began as an experimental season in 1965-67. It became an option for other states in 1969"

Short news release from the Department of the interior dated January 15,1965
https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/historic-news-releases/1965/19650115.PDF

Early findings of teal season dated October 22,1965
https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/historic-news-releases/1965/19651022.PDF

Complete report with data on the number of permits sold, sex and age numbers, etc.
https://ia902909.us.archive.org/1/items/specialscientif95unit/specialscientif95unit_bw.pdf

[Rick]

Would have been fun to have some of that information in hand when I interviewed Dennis Anderson about his series on Louisiana outlawing in the Minneapolis-St. Paul paper. Though, to his credit, he did tell me a disappointing result of the series was all the folks coming forward with information on how bad it was in his own state.