What a load of crap

[JaMak84]

The deer guys must be teaching the duck guys how to count.


Press Release
Thursday, January 12, 2017

Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks
1505 Eastover Drive, Jackson, MS, 39211
Phone: 601-432-2400

Extreme Weather Results in Record Waterfowl Numbers
JACKSON -The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP) completed its early January aerial waterfowl survey this week as part of the nationwide Mid-Winter Waterfowl Survey. Estimates for both mallards and total ducks were the highest observed since MDWFP began using its current survey methods in 2005. The survey estimate of the Mississippi Delta is 1,442,406 total ducks, including 678,235 mallards. The early January aerial waterfowl survey report with waterfowl estimates and distribution maps can be found online at http://www.mdwfp.com/wildlife-hunting/w ... ey-reports.

The extreme cold weather which swept across the country late last week and remained through early portions of this week likely had a significant impact on the number of birds arriving in Mississippi. "The widespread snowfall and icy conditions that reached into the South over the last several consecutive days forced large numbers of waterfowl to migrate in search of milder weather and available wetland habitat," said Houston Havens, MDWFP Waterfowl Program Coordinator.

Mississippi usually receives peak waterfowl numbers during the month of January, when the waterfowl hunting season is in full swing. The regular waterfowl season will continue through January 29, followed by the final youth waterfowl hunting day on February 4. Goose hunting seasons will have a final season segment February 4 - 15, 2017.

For more information regarding waterfowl in Mississippi, visit our website at www.mdwfp.com/waterfowl or call us at (601) 432-2199. Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mdwfp or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MDWFPonline.


Find us on Facebook & follow us on Twitter

Share with your friends!

[DanP]

Link to report with map: http://www.mdwfp.com/media/379249/early ... report.pdf

[deltadukman]

Reminds me of the DU magazine articles that come out late August about "record hatches and numbers of mallards" followed by the Macks PW magazine. It's all in marketing and selling the sport. Dolla Dolla bills yall. Sell them licenses boys, come one come all from Alabama and afar to rent your box in the dirt because staring at blue skies is worth $5k+ a year. Or buy your permits to stand among the masses and hope to be picked in one or our luxurious duck parks and get told where you and the rest of the sports are going to get to shoot today.

[Click]

Why is this a load of crap?

The deer guys must be teaching the duck guys how to count.


Press Release
Thursday, January 12, 2017

Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks
1505 Eastover Drive, Jackson, MS, 39211
Phone: 601-432-2400

Extreme Weather Results in Record Waterfowl Numbers
JACKSON -The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP) completed its early January aerial waterfowl survey this week as part of the nationwide Mid-Winter Waterfowl Survey. Estimates for both mallards and total ducks were the highest observed since MDWFP began using its current survey methods in 2005. The survey estimate of the Mississippi Delta is 1,442,406 total ducks, including 678,235 mallards. The early January aerial waterfowl survey report with waterfowl estimates and distribution maps can be found online at http://www.mdwfp.com/wildlife-hunting/w ... ey-reports.

The extreme cold weather which swept across the country late last week and remained through early portions of this week likely had a significant impact on the number of birds arriving in Mississippi. "The widespread snowfall and icy conditions that reached into the South over the last several consecutive days forced large numbers of waterfowl to migrate in search of milder weather and available wetland habitat," said Houston Havens, MDWFP Waterfowl Program Coordinator.

Mississippi usually receives peak waterfowl numbers during the month of January, when the waterfowl hunting season is in full swing. The regular waterfowl season will continue through January 29, followed by the final youth waterfowl hunting day on February 4. Goose hunting seasons will have a final season segment February 4 - 15, 2017.

For more information regarding waterfowl in Mississippi, visit our website at http://www.mdwfp.com/waterfowl or call us at (601) 432-2199. Follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/mdwfp or on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MDWFPonline.


Find us on Facebook & follow us on Twitter

Share with your friends!

[missed mallards]

Why is this a load of crap?

The deer guys must be teaching the duck guys how to count.


Press Release
Thursday, January 12, 2017

Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks
1505 Eastover Drive, Jackson, MS, 39211
Phone: 601-432-2400

Extreme Weather Results in Record Waterfowl Numbers
JACKSON -The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP) completed its early January aerial waterfowl survey this week as part of the nationwide Mid-Winter Waterfowl Survey. Estimates for both mallards and total ducks were the highest observed since MDWFP began using its current survey methods in 2005. The survey estimate of the Mississippi Delta is 1,442,406 total ducks, including 678,235 mallards. The early January aerial waterfowl survey report with waterfowl estimates and distribution maps can be found online at http://www.mdwfp.com/wildlife-hunting/w ... ey-reports.

The extreme cold weather which swept across the country late last week and remained through early portions of this week likely had a significant impact on the number of birds arriving in Mississippi. "The widespread snowfall and icy conditions that reached into the South over the last several consecutive days forced large numbers of waterfowl to migrate in search of milder weather and available wetland habitat," said Houston Havens, MDWFP Waterfowl Program Coordinator.

Mississippi usually receives peak waterfowl numbers during the month of January, when the waterfowl hunting season is in full swing. The regular waterfowl season will continue through January 29, followed by the final youth waterfowl hunting day on February 4. Goose hunting seasons will have a final season segment February 4 - 15, 2017.

For more information regarding waterfowl in Mississippi, visit our website at http://www.mdwfp.com/waterfowl or call us at (601) 432-2199. Follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/mdwfp or on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MDWFPonline.


Find us on Facebook & follow us on Twitter

Share with your friends!

I would suspect he, like many, aren't holding ducks. If this year has been better than the last 3-4 where are the ducks?

It's been an odd year for sure. I know some folks and places that have been hot all year. I know hundreds that haven't seen a duck! You would suspect with record numbers ducks would be found in historic holes. Some historic holes were a bust this year while new holes seem to be the ticket.

I've put roughly 10k miles on my truck this winter driving in areas that typically hold thousands. Work related. I haven't seen them. I know there here, or so the survey says, but I haven't found them yet. I know in my hunting area they want one thing and I ain't got it. The ones that have it have done well. Will plan on it this year though.

[420 racin]

Well, I said earlier in another post, I haven't hunted one time this year, didn't even buy stamps, but with my job I typically ride through the delta, and all parts of it frequently. I know I can't see the holes or swamps etc... and everything from the roads, but I do get to drive through a lot of territory and I just didn't see enough birds for me to spend the money. I know people that absolutely killed them, but I know a lot more than didn't kill $#!+ and were in some good spots. Hell I deer hunted a little north of the prestigious duck WMA in the south delta and didn't see many at all. There was actually some guys duck hunting the other morning just to the south of me, probably a member on here, thanks for turning an 8 point back my way!

Just don't understand how there can be that many ducks here and still folks are not killing or seeing them.

[Blackduck]

1.4 million ducks? I sure would like to see that.

[DrakeSlayr]

263% increase over past two years. Haven't hunted in the past two years but have been around and I haven't seen them.

[stang67]

Like the OP said, we deer hunters know this routine -- well!

[Long Cut]

Read that report earlier in the week. I was a suspect upon reading it. Not saying that MDWFP is making that up at all but I'm just not seeing it and I, like other,s spend 2-3k miles a month on the road in north ms for work. I will say there are more ducks than last year by a landslide in our area of the North Delta and it seems to me many more mallards but still way low overall. We are hunting maybe 2 miles from ms river and 1/2 mile from a major lake and its just odd not to see the ducks sitting in their usual ditches and potholes where they hang out every year, most places don't even have a single duck in them. It is frustrating but Ive been chasing them long enough to be confident that we will have some good years ahead that will make us forget these rough patches.

[Smoke68]

They obviously took their time flying over Fighting Bayou HC. If you count the ducks in that corn then expand those numbers to cover a larger area, you should end up with about 1.4 million ducks.

I'm serious. Look at the map.

[DoublePslayer]

A friend of mine flies the plane for these guys, and they usually take 3 days to cover the entire delta. 3 Days. He fly's a pre-programmed grid on an east-west line and starts from greenwood and goes north one day, south the next, and finishes up around Vicksburg the 3rd. Now think about how much a duck will move in a day north of south. There is a strong possibility that they are counting the same ducks multiple times. Fly one line from Rosedale to Oxberry, and then move over a mile and fly another. Hell, they could be counting the same duck 20 times during the survey. Now I'm not saying the data is purposely inaccurate, but you can't expect it to be completely accurate either. Also, the guy doing the counting is moving at 130mph and only 400 ft off the ground, so you know he is not on the money with his counts.

Just and FYI.

[RNAIL]

DoubleP,, that makes a lot of sense to me, what you just said.

And I ask this because I don't know, how do they count ducks flying 130 mph at 400 ft. Do they use a grid match of numbers or something similar, such as to say, okay this xyz hole will hole x number ducks and just work a math formula?? Just curious of how they actually do it..

[DanP]

I picked up the phone this afternoon and called Alec Conrad, who was the biologist with MDWFP in the airplane counting ducks for this survey and several years prior. Basically he goes up in the plane for several days on a designated flight path and counts ducks and geese at roughly 300 sample points. This data is taken back to Jackson and an equation is used to extrapolate the sample estimate across the Delta. Data analysis and report development is done by Houston Havens.

In reference to some of the comments above I will say that I know both of these gentleman well and any claim of "cooking the numbers" for some political or monetary purpose is bull$hit. These men are professionals who do this type work every day and put their name behind it. The BS claims from the arm chair QBs above is pretty much an insult to their personal and professional integrity.

In the wildlife/forestry profession we do a lot of "ocular estimation", that is estimating quantitative parameters with our eye balls. We are trained to do this, but it is an art, something that takes a good bit of practice to do well. For example, a good forester can walk through the woods and call tree diameter within a couple of tenths of inch and tree height within a few feet. Same thing with vegetation surveys where we call percent coverage by species within a certain area. Actual measurements or counts are how we train, and check our estimates as we work, but ocular estimation is how we cover ground in a cost effective manner.

Take this approach to aerial surveys for waterfowl. The reality is that you are in a moving airplane, you only have so long to identify ducks by species and make a count. You can take photographs and do after the fact counts to check your estimates, which is time consuming, but a good way of checking yourself. To give you an idea of how dedicated these guys are to what they do, Alec (poor soul) sits in his recliner in the evening making dots on pieces of paper and flipping through making "ocular estimations" in an effort to improve his abilities. While my work with estimating waterfowl numbers is limited, I can tell you this, when a professional biologist or forester tells you that he is confident in his numbers, you can take it to the bank that its going to be real dad gum close.

With that said, one thing I don't know much about is the equation that is used to extrapolate sample numbers across the Delta. The first thing that popped into my head was, does the equation account for frozen conditions? With fields and shallow water locked up, other than where the ducks were keeping it open, would the concentrated numbers result in an overestimation once extrapolated out? I honestly don't know the answer to that question, but it could be relevant.

Something else to think about is the weather during 2016. Wet spring and summer, bumper acorn and moist soil crop. A drought in the fall resulted in very little crop left in the field and practically every acre broke and turned under. So everything that we can see from the road driving by has practically zero nutritional value, other than some inverts. Everybody I talk to has either had a great season or a horrible season, very few in between.

The final point to consider, is what was happening to the north and west of us during the time frame of the survey. The satellite photo below was taken on January 4th and depicts snow/ice, that should be pretty self explanatory. Also, aerial surveys in Arkansas (which were down) and ground counts from the South Delta further support the higher numbers documented in the survey report.

[chevy01234]

Psssssh...get that pesky truth and them ol facts up out of here! Ain't nobody got time for that!