Migration Changes

[JimWalker]

It seems some members/people in general get almost upset when someone says the migration has changed. I don't think any of us know, or I don't think that any of us know enough to know who is right and who isnt.

I think that it has changed in two ways and both of them spell more ducks to the north and more ducks to the west.

I just wanted to show this map to guys who think that it is absurd lunacy to say that ducks that are in Ill. will actually go to OKlahoma instead of come to us. I know several guys think that is idiotic and ridiculous.

But look at this map, and see if it may make you think a little differently.
Each yellow and each green arrow and line are exactly the same length.

This makes me ask myself, why wouldn't they if we have no water?

[torch]

Jimmy you know it might be they follow water. That little thing called the Mighty Mississippi.

[Dutch Dog]

The ducks in Oklahoma are central flyway ducks. Now what may have happened is that ducks from the Dakotas and northern Minnesota may have changed their migration routes from the getgo, but once they reach Illinois I seriously doubt they will take a hard right and all of a sudden become central flyway ducks. People talk of moisture and temperature. They did get snow up in Minnesota and the Dakotas early pushing the ducks out of there, but central to southern Illinois and Missourri simply didn't get the snow cover. Here is an added twist, the ducks we are hunting are about 20% of the huntable population. People have become so conservation oriented that they have created "rest" areas to which 80% of the ducks stay in from their nesting grounds to their wintering grounds. I say that those rest areas need to be hunted AT LEAST 2 times every week just to keep the ducks honest. Maybe next year is all I can say, but in the same breath I can also say that I'm going to spend a lot more time chasing bambi next year (they are here and I don't have to wait on snow or cold weather)

[Coot]

DD, you're my kind of guy. Ducks need a rest spot, but why not have the rest spots change every now and then? For example, that buffet the ducks have north of the road at Mahannah. The no-hunting area could swap to the other side of the road every week or two. Or Panther, no hunting on the west side this week, no hunting on the east side next week. Might be a little trouble to enforce, but people would learn to pay attention eventually.

[mudsucker]

Dutch, I have been saying that on here for a while. Switch the rest areas around as the birds are imprinted on these safe areas just as they are to their birth/brooding grounds. Just my 2cents worth.

[msdrake]

My thought is that ducks will go where the food is. The recent trend of warm weather to our north gives the ducks no reason to migrate. My fear is that the few ducks that we have been getting the last three years came down on instincts. The "new " ducks have never been forced to migrate due to snow, ice, and a lack off food therefore that instinct is lost. I believe that at this point it will take two straight years of a forced migration to return us to the point we got spoiled with in the late 90's. But, that's my opinion and opinions are like buttholes. Everyone has one and most stink.

[JimWalker]

I wonder if the ice and snow sheild forming just above us today will do anything.

[Chuckle12]

My fear is that the few ducks that we have been getting the last three years came down on instincts.

I have the same fear myself. Hopefully, the instinct is still there, but the new, young ducks don't know they are "supposed" to fly all the way down here every winter. All they know is they need to fly south as far as needed to have food.

I said at the beginning of December that we would have more ducks than we know what to do with come February. Looks like that is the way it'll happen again this year. Next season, I think I'll save my money that usually goes toward a lease and use it to pay off my fines while I hunt in February .

[hillhunter]

I believe that the instincts are inborn. I don't think the migration has changed because i just haven't seen enough hard evidence that it has. I do and always will believe that the ducks follow water and look for water in fields to feed in. I think they will stay where the water is, until that water turns to ice, then they should move south to MS.......something they havent had to do yet.

[JimWalker]

I think they learn by following their elders, and not too many have been learning to come here. Then when they have gotten here, we have taught them never come back, because we have no water and high pressure.
I think even with a blinding blizzard just north of us, they would pop in, get shot at, and pop right back out headed further south.

[mack]

The bottom line is their is just not as many ducks as their was 4 or 5 years ago. Everybody talks about no snow up north, look I am from missouri and that state has never been a state that gets covered with snow that stays. Missouri gets occassional snow, but rarely does the snow stay for more than a few days. The only reason I think that the weather change is bogus, is because I can remember hunting in Stuttgart as a kid in short sleeve shirts and mauling the ducks and know you hardly see a duck. If weather was it we would have a few more ducks around,because two weeks ago missouri had rigid cold temperatures and snow and their still wasn't a duck found in arkansas or mississippi. The weather is what du tells everyone to keep people donating.

[judge jb]

i agree jimwalker, the hens that have visited us over the past decade have instilled a migration route for their young......the hens showed them a safe route with plenty of food and as little pressure as possible.........


maybe them hens told their young to not go to Mississippi unless they had too....... {THEM BOYS MEAN BUSINESS}

judge jb

[Bullet]

Come Feb. there will be so many ducks we wont know what to do with em.

[eastwoods]

From one Arkie perspective, which doesn't mean much:

We had ducks all year in mega numbers, but they were on refuges and fed nocturnally. When the refuge numbers increased (new ducks) you might kill them for one day, but they got in with the megacrowd and went nocturnal within 24 hours.

Some of these refuges say 10 years ago if they had 25,000 ducks on them everybody within 5 miles killed the limit. Now they have 250,000 ducks on them and you don't see a bird during the day.

There is so much rice flooded they don't even get in the woods anymore period. Well they didn't this year, with the exception of early November just before they flood the rice.

It was sit on refuge all day and fly out at night to feed and fly back before the sun came up all year. You could kill them in a rice field if it rained.

My season was better than last, but poor at best. I would say most Arkies had about the same as me or a maybe a little worse. Four bad, poor, or sucky years in a row for Arkansas.

In other words I don't think it's the migration path. I think it's the duck that has changed. They don't do what they used to. If there are any dumb ones then they are staying up north. The ones that come down you can't kill.

There 1,000s or in other words "good numbers" coming down to Arkansas. You just can't kill them.

This may be a reach, but perhaps the '99 robo massacre produced a genetically mentally superior duck for survival charactersitics. I don't know, but I don't think it is the snow theory. If we have to have deep snow up north to kill ducks we better duck hunt 2 years out of decade. It was cold/snowy enough or above average this year in my opinion.

In my humble opinion, we need to shorten the season with big splits to remove the pressure so ducks will fly in daylight and we need to hunt the refuges to some extent. The ducks that are here have to change.

I expect the number of ducks to go up again and the feds will continue status quo and future seasons will continue to be poor. I guess I am startin' to believe the duckman from Monroe, LA: "what good is a duck if you can't kill it".

[chopper30]

You've been busy this weekend Jim. All these questions for everyone.

But I still think that the Mississippi Flyway birds are not going to ....Oklahoma!