Post Season

[Darren]

The tropics are eerily quiet.

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Rick]

Just enough to make the grass grow a litter faster

About the same here: hay and beans are happier, everything soaked in and nada ran off.

[Darren]

The tropics are eerily quiet.

The Wishcasters are all bummed about this. I am not.

We’re still in the early days of 2018 for tropical cyclone formation across the Northern Hemisphere, but so far the balance of power has favored the Eastern Pacific in a big way. The expected arrival of El Niño conditions later this summer and autumn is likely to give a further boost to hurricane generation in the Northeast Pacific, while making it harder for hurricanes to spin up in the Atlantic.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Tropi ... erwhelming

[Ducaholic]

The tropics are eerily quiet.

The Wishcasters are all bummed about this. I am not.

We’re still in the early days of 2018 for tropical cyclone formation across the Northern Hemisphere, but so far the balance of power has favored the Eastern Pacific in a big way. The expected arrival of El Niño conditions later this summer and autumn is likely to give a further boost to hurricane generation in the Northeast Pacific, while making it harder for hurricanes to spin up in the Atlantic.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Tropi ... erwhelming

August and September always tell the tale as you know.

[Darren]

The tropics are eerily quiet.

The Wishcasters are all bummed about this. I am not.

We’re still in the early days of 2018 for tropical cyclone formation across the Northern Hemisphere, but so far the balance of power has favored the Eastern Pacific in a big way. The expected arrival of El Niño conditions later this summer and autumn is likely to give a further boost to hurricane generation in the Northeast Pacific, while making it harder for hurricanes to spin up in the Atlantic.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Tropi ... erwhelming

August and September always tell the tale as you know.

August and Sept are the months for Atlantic Ocean storms coming off of africa. Thankfully that region of the Atlantic is unusually cool right now. Waters for home grown storms are pretty hot though closer to Florida and Carib.

[SpinnerMan]

And as you all know, it is still a big dose of random noise both in the formation of the storms and where they hit. It only takes one and it doesn't have to be that big to make a big fucking mess.

[Rick]

It only takes one and it doesn't have to be that big to make a big fucking mess.

No one saw our August 2016 flood coming, just a little low pressure...

[Rick]

Dave, I was on your old lease yesterday and sure do wish you and Blake would trot on over there and clear the flood canal levee route to your blind again, as one of (3) nests is near it's south end.

(Others are in the SW corner on the big outside levee and on SE end of the the back line levee. Naturally.)

[Ducaholic]

The tropics are eerily quiet.

The Wishcasters are all bummed about this. I am not.

We’re still in the early days of 2018 for tropical cyclone formation across the Northern Hemisphere, but so far the balance of power has favored the Eastern Pacific in a big way. The expected arrival of El Niño conditions later this summer and autumn is likely to give a further boost to hurricane generation in the Northeast Pacific, while making it harder for hurricanes to spin up in the Atlantic.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Tropi ... erwhelming

August and September always tell the tale as you know.

August and Sept are the months for Atlantic Ocean storms coming off of africa. Thankfully that region of the Atlantic is unusually cool right now. Waters for home grown storms are pretty hot though closer to Florida and Carib.

Interesting stuff right here. You are right Darren but there are still quite a few storms originating in the GOM and Caribbean.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/

[aunt betty]

Study/research HAARP and focus on where them Atlantic hurricanes are spawned.
Last year was freaky if you look at the records. They had like 4 at a time going.

[Rick]

Yeah, I'm a little concerned about water myself, although I did have good news this morning. It seems that the little rain maker that moved into Texas last week either dumped or pushed some water in the marsh. Was told the dry ponds at the refuge now have water, and crabs.

Heard yesterday that a lot of coastal Vermilion Parish gator nests had been under water, presumably from elevated tides related to that system. But it sounded like much of that water was short-lived.

[DComeaux]

From a posting on FFL


Don’t think I ever posted this for you guys. This was brought up in feb and lobbyists just about lost their minds trying to lobby it out before it hit the floor! They succeeded. It was lobbied in less then 24 hrs! Bull crap! We are not the only one effected by this guys!

36338135_207856273370165_415921879870603264_n.jpg

[aunt betty]

There is more than just one factor affecting our hunting.
There weren't any geese here to speak of until no-till.
They stay pretty close and so do a lot of the greenheads until it's frozen solid.

You could eliminate every bit of standing flooded corn in the USA and it would not affect my hunting much at all.
Those places get ate out quickly because the corn germinates and falls to the bottom.

The places I've hunted that have flooded standing crops always did the best on the years that the crops failed. The State of Illinois Dept of Conservation aka DNR is not worth a damn at farming. The weeds years are epic and we kill more ducks. Go figure.
You have to deal with waders that collect thousands of little burrs with two prongs. They dry then fall off in your truck.


You're imagining nicely done fields when in reality it's land that's not going to produce a crop 4 out of 5 years.
They don't fertilize or anything so sure it's standing corn but pretty bleak almost every year.

Feeds them on the return flight? I don't think so. Maybe there's some weed seeds left.

[DComeaux]

It's not looking good for the ducks, unless the few hunters that remain make up financially for those average Joe's that drop out.

http://www.10000birds.com/duck-stamps-and-ducks.htm

[aunt betty]

It means that some of us are buying two or three stamps.

[SpinnerMan]

They don't fertilize or anything so sure it's standing corn but pretty bleak almost every year.

For wildlife, all wildlife, and not just a duck hunting enterprise, I believe you actually want that. It provides nesting cover for all kinds of wildlife, it provides a greater diversity of seeds for a greater diversity of wildlife. There, may, just may be some rational to it. Of course, in our brokeass state, it's probably just cheaper to do it halfassed.

There was a beautiful sorghum field near the one place I occasional worked in Virginia that would get flooded as a waterfowl refuge. I was never down there in the winter to check it out, but it was a good looking crop just off of the James River where it is far more a bay than a river. That was in 1990. Nothing new about this at all.

[DComeaux]

It will turn into an elitist sport. Where for those that have good hunting,money is not an object. They’ll fly to wherever hunt and fly back to home. Or if you don’t have significant money you have a skill set that allows you to hunt where the elites hunt. That’s the only reason I get to hunt NE Arkansas.

I do like putting on a speck show for those who have not seen them work as such. I have been entrusted with a gift and for that I am very thankful.

The common man will get the crumbs and you either will be satisfied or travel to where the birds go now.

Just the way I see it,it’s still good enough down here for me to be content. However the day is coming where,especially in the case of specks,they will be absent just like the Canada goose is. Already very apparent with blues.

It's depressing to think about this stuff, and that's why I'm involved with the push. I don't want to see the ducks disappear from our state. I hate to think that one day I will no longer be hunting waterfowl down here. A winter without the sights and sounds of fowl would be depressing. It's a sobering thought. One I never thought would enter my mind, being that I live in south Louisiana.

[DComeaux]

Read this, from our northern neighbors.

https://www.arkansashunting.net/threads/i%E2%80%99m-worried-about-our-ducks.225449/

[Rick]

Spent part of this morning listening to guys hammering an ex-Lacassine Refuge manager for ruining our goose hunting by shutting down their feeding program. Used to listen to them hammer her predecessors for holding all the specks. If it ain't one thing, it's another...

Now they can't even afford a manager (and it's kinda spooky going to the nearly empty one-man office), so if the rest of the federal system is in the same shape, the short-stopping theorists have won a major victory.

[aunt betty]

The good news is that the wave of soy boys coming down the pike can't eat meat.
Just have to stick it out a while longer and we'll get into better times.
Things change and then they change some more. Get used to it.
Adapt.

[Rick]

That in question this morning was the planting of wheat (which was something of a surprise to me).

[DComeaux]

Spent part of this morning listening to guys hammering an ex-Lacassine Refuge manager for ruining our goose hunting by shutting down their feeding program. Used to listen to them hammer her predecessors for holding all the specks. If it ain't one thing, it's another...

Now they can't even afford a manager (and it's kinda spooky going to the nearly empty one-man office), so if the rest of the federal system is in the same shape, the short-stopping theorists have won a major victory.

I think this states federal and state refuges have been left in ruin, accept for maybe one on the coast. It still gets a little fanfare. Of all the places in the flyway this should be the last state to lose these resources. Seems quite a few up north are thriving and have the money to make it happen. Why is that? Was this by design? I've heard some troubling comments made by reputable people who wish to remain silent.............. Can of worms..... Money and politics.

[SpinnerMan]

Read this, from our northern neighbors.

https://www.arkansashunting.net/threads/i%E2%80%99m-worried-about-our-ducks.225449/

Interesting, but obviously anecdotal.

"Texas and Oklahoma were both in extended drought periods five or ten years ago. Now, all their “tanks” - as they call them - are overflowing. I know guys with deer leases in those states going out there duck hunting now."

"I think it has a lot to do with there being a big chunk of Farm ground around here is no longer flooded in winter. There is a lot of money in duck hunting but farming is our livelihood and the ground is much easier to get dry and Farm in the spring without flooding all winter"

"I blame it on the ducks not having many places they can sit anymore. Use to if you wanted to get to those places where the water was shallow and hard to get to you walked. Now with mud motors they get push out."

"There are several farms that total close to 10000 acres relatively close that are no longer being flooded for hunting. The landowners were getting all the reward and the farmer none of the benefits has changed many Farm leases the last 15 years."

"I am a believer in the theory of the patterns changing. The central seams to be pretty hot and loaded with ducks. I visited with some of my wife's family last week that live in Tulsa. The 3 brothers together have just under 3000 acres of deer land in Northern OK close to the panhandle I think. None of them ever duck hunted much til 4 years ago. They talk about hiw they used to never see any ducks anywhere around them and now their ponds are loaded. "

"Fall field prep has a lot to do with it also. Many more people disking and floating fields in the fall rather than spring, which covers a lot of available grain. Just walk into a harvested rice or soybean field that hasn’t been disked. Lots of grain hidden in stubble and straw."

"The last two years there’s a notable difference in the ground that was worked up because it was so dry. If you drive around the Delta it’s pretty disheartening for a duck hunter. Farming is big business and you have to understand why it’s done, but, it makes you shake your head wondering why ducks would stay around too long in eastern Arkansas. If they ate dirt, we’d be in the chips."
I like this one in particular

"Plain and simple we have too many people trying to kill them in Arkansas with shrinking food supplies and zero places for them to sit and rest without some face painted yuppie with a squeaky call trying to kill them. Factor in mud motors, oosers, and whatever else you want to factor in and that is why we don't have the ducks we had nor the quality of hunting"

Sounds a lot like what I saw happen to where I grew up. When I was a kid, almost no duck hunters and the short season, the ducks had plenty of place to rest since most didn't show until the season was over. Then came the resident Canada goose and that attracted a lot of new people to waterfowl hunting. Duck season was extended. While they still have a 60 day season, the no Sunday hunting rule makes for a 6 day instead of 7 day week, so instead of 8.6 weeks, the season is 10 weeks. And with the splits in runs well into January when I used to see piles of ducks, but couldn't do anything about it. So for a couple decades of non-stop harassment, the locals have been extirpated and the migrants don't stop. We have no refuges in most of the state. Combine that with a lot less water and a lot less food, it's not surprising that their patterns have shifted especially if there is tons of water to the west and tons of food to the north.

Of course, never forget how good you have it.

"A couple of us hunted Friday, Saturday and Sunday until around 11 o’clock each day and we ended up with 7 mallards for the 3 day total"
That can be a season for many places My first year hunting out here, I got 3 geese and 4 ducks and I thought I had a great season and couldn't understand all the complaining. At that club, it used to be one of the highest producing clubs in the state. Now there are a lot more years where 4 ducks is not terrible. Everything is houses where grain fields used to be. The club was located between those and a refuge where the ducks staged. Ducks do not stage there at all any more. There are a thousand retention ponds scattered everywhere and the ducks are never harassed. It's not unusual to see more ducks in the little pond across the street from my house than I did hunting all morning. If they are feeling particularly lazy, they can walk the 20 yards between the pond and the nearest grain field.

[DComeaux]

I did get a chuckle out of one or two.

[DComeaux]

It will turn into an elitist sport. Where for those that have good hunting,money is not an object. They’ll fly to wherever hunt and fly back to home. Or if you don’t have significant money you have a skill set that allows you to hunt where the elites hunt. That’s the only reason I get to hunt NE Arkansas.

I do like putting on a speck show for those who have not seen them work as such. I have been entrusted with a gift and for that I am very thankful.

The common man will get the crumbs and you either will be satisfied or travel to where the birds go now.

Just the way I see it,it’s still good enough down here for me to be content. However the day is coming where,especially in the case of specks,they will be absent just like the Canada goose is. Already very apparent with blues.

It's depressing to think about this stuff, and that's why I'm involved with the push. I don't want to see the ducks disappear from our state. I hate to think that one day I will no longer be hunting waterfowl down here. A winter without the sights and sounds of fowl would be depressing. It's a sobering thought. One I never thought would enter my mind, being that I live in south Louisiana.

I also never dreamed there would be a time when driving hwy 14 between lacassine bayou and gueydan that you would be hard pressed to find multiple bodies of blues and snows---although last year was a pleasant sight when the geese stayed after that short lived snow event,the ducks left as soon as the warm up hit---but there where blues around for a while

I really cant complain though,we killed specks from the first weekend in November through the last day in February

BUT if i was a duck purist it was a very poor season,so i do see the validity in the serious decline

we should have had mallards as soon as the robins showed---the robins showed but the mallards were absent

I had always used the sight of robins as sign of the migration getting into full swing, but that doesn't work anymore. I would truly love to hunt the specks on a regular basis, but where they live and play is too expensive for me.