Finally some hope

[Tedl10]

i can already hear a faint gobble off in the distance

[Dux Be Us]

i can already hear a faint gobble off in the distance

THATS the best idea Ive heard ALL season...man, I gotta green pasture outside Cookeville TN that I have dreams about...CANT WAIT

[slayem]

Dang global warming...kiss my booty Al Gore...Im going fishin'

Wont be long, we pondered the idea sunday afternoon, but took a nap instead

[bigsprig]

i can already hear a faint gobble off in the distance

you can say what you will, but as i was standing in my swamp in central alabama the morning of dec 23 hoping for a wood duck or 2 i did hear a turkey gobble in the island of woods on the other side of the field. i had to remind myself that i was indeed attempting to duck hunt. go figure.

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Piss on a duck, be damned piss on a duck. I can't be mad at em' when there is none to be mad at. But I HATE a turkey. My anger at the ducks will add to the hate I have on Mr. Tom.

bigsprig, I believe you. A friend told me he heard one gobble 5 times last week. With this warm weather I believe it; plus it's not completely unheard of. If I only got tail for a couple months a year I would be thinking about it already. Bring on the dogwoods, perch jerkin' and a Tombigbee hills ridgetop at daybreak.

[redmondandmelvin]

what the grim reaper says is true--hunting has changed. you don't have the luxury to "let 'em" build". If you have killable ducks, you had better kill 'em or they will be gone. that is to me one of the saddest parts of how hunting has changed, it used to be if you "had ducks" you had them for some days, and if you were careful, you could get a couple weekends out of them or several days. Now, they are here and gone, or they are eating at night, we are turning them into different creatures, and the weather doesn't help a bit.

With all do respect I dont see how ducks as a whole are any different now than they were 10-15 years ago. They still have the same general habits, I do believe that they wise up to spinners, large spreads, lots of calling, etc but any other game animal has the same tendencies to learn signs of prey with age. Given ducks have been hunted for the past 70 years I am not quite sure how all the sudden we have changed them?

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Maybe a biologist on board can clear this up.

I remember reading an article on "Mexican quail". You always hear old timers say, "You can't hunt wild quail 'round here na'more they ain't native they Mexican quail. They don't sit tight when dogs point, they run out ahead of dogs." Well what has really happened is the surviving birds passed down traits that modern day birds have. Those quail that flew from roost to feeding ground instead of walked and those birds that broke out running ahead of dogs instead of holding tight were the birds that lived. The birds that reproduced. Obviously the lower number of birds nowadays is not because of hunting, but the birds who lived passed down those traits.

Look at the gobbling activity of turkeys. It has steadily declined over the years, as a whole. A gobbling turkey is a dead turkey. Maybe I have been reading too many Gene Nunnery books.

What about an old bucketmouth sow who wouldn't think twice about exploding on a spinnerbait?

Do those quail still hold? Do those turkeys still gobble? Do those giant bass still bite? Of course. But do they do it as often?

I think the mallard duck is no different. We just think a public land turkey gets hunted hard. Think about a duck. From September to January they hear and see it all. At times nothing less than being on the "x" will work. No decoys, no calling and maximum effort on being hidden is your only chance. Sure, 100 years ago there was just as much habitat as today, and most certainly just as much with no hunting pressure. But nowadays those refuge areas are as sought after as a virgin at the 20 year class reunion.

You can go to Lokafoma lake and watch thousands of mallards come to roost. Folks wonder why they aren't killing them at the refuge draw area. Prisock field gets wiped clean by them in the first couple of weeks after flooding. Habitat in that area is very limited for that many ducks in comparison to an area like the delta. So where are they going? But what very few folks know is there is a section of land, an actual section (640 acres) not far from the greentrees that is planted in corn and milo and millet by a wealthy landowner. That section is NEVER hunted. He does it just because he enjoys seeing the birds. I have seen it with my own two eyes. Those birds know now more than ever where to go if they want to live. The only exception is flight birds. And just like Sunday morning, it doesn't take long for them to figure out that a refuge is just around the bend.

Once again, it doesn't take long for them to figure it out. We use to hunt a field outside of Noxapater, MS. A small area at the back of it about the size of 3 acres use to flood. No telling how many years ducks came out of the swamp and used that field when it turned to sheet water. We gained access and murdered ducks and geese for two seasons. After that I have yet to see a bird use that field other than the occasional resident mallard or goose. They figured out that that place had been found out.

Sure you can go and kill ducks. But it is a different game. A mallard duck is a different critter now. I think that even though weather is a factor ducks are learning that if they stay away from that odd looking spread and those odd sounding calls they will live. Do ducks still get killed? Yes. But with what frequency? What does it take? Less or more or the same? If you say less or the same, I bet you are wondering what is up with those damn ducks. And the mallard drake is laughing all the way to the refuge, craw full of rice, of course.

[UndercoverBrother]

They are no different.

What is different is the explosion of hunters in the Dakotas and all the refuges they have built in the upper mid-west coupled with mild winters. They've been shot at already this year and learned to refuge hop. They learn to avoid an RNT single reed and a decoy spread starting about Mid-September and wind up on the refuges. They got food, open water, etc. Why would they go somewhere?

Back when it was a 30 day season with a 3 duck limit their dang seasons were closed up in the Dakotas and the weather locked those topwaters out. They didn't duck hunt up there like they do today in 2012. They'd go shoot a few and then the snow + ice + closed seasons would prevent them from hunting. They didn't educate every duck from Montanta to Maine before they got down this way.

So liberal 60 day 6 duck limit seasons are the first thing that has hurt us.

In addition, the Corn Belt has now changed and with genetically engineered corn and other crops they can grow it all the way up into Canada where 30 years ago they would have never been able to grow it at a profit.

Throw a mild winter in on top of that with no snow cover and this is what you get, right now... today.

All the ducks you see that are here today and gone tomorrow because there simply aren't that many down here. Teh big numbers are still sitting up in the upper Mid-West fat and happy with ZERO hunting pressure. Why would they fly south into a wall of gunfire?

In a winter like we are having..... the only way to accurately describe it is.... We've been "Short Stopped".

And it isn't going away. They have been building "habitat" up there for 30 years and this is the way it will be from now on.

And they can put their duck harvest numbers in their pipe and smoke it. I'm sure at the end of the season they'll claim we kilt Millions....It's all a bunch of total BS. I'll be putting down 10+ on my HIP survey from this season just like I did last and I haven't killed 1/4 of the ducks.

[duramax]

Interestingly, it is snowing in Memphis right now.