Rick wrote:So shooting mallards in mid November was a pleasant surprise when I moved down here in '83.
In a good year, and we don't get many. We get a lot of mallards pass through in November. We are not on the main routes, but we are not that far off. So when conditions are right quite a few pass through that are actually heading much further south. In a bad year, we don't see a damn thing until everything starts to get frozen hard. We haven't had a good November since 2011. 2011 was a crazy good year for us and every year since has been nearly a complete bust for November mallards.
December is always a question of the weather. Does it freeze hard enough so they concentrate on the cooling lakes and open segments of the river. There's a stretch of river not far from my house that is not open to hunting and rarely freezes that gets packed full of them. I like to stop by and walk out on the bridge and watch them some times.
I looked at my data and it was up and down prior to 2011. Then 2011 was well over double our best prior year and then it has been a complete bust since then. I've shot nearly the same number of mallards in November over the last 6 seasons as I did the first season hunting here when I really had no clue what I was doing. We are very over do for a good year. Our club had our blind drawings a little over a week ago. I got an early pick for rotations and I have the absolute best blind the week of Thanksgiving and a new blind we added that I think will be a killer blind the first week of December that will be easy to break ice since it is one of the few blinds with shallow water that you can wade. So I'm in good shape if we actually get mallards to pass through. Not to mention, I have one of the top wood duck blinds for the opening week. I'm as set as I can be, but now the weather and the birds just need to cooperate.