Migration Changes

[cajun squealer]

Well done, MallardHunter! THAT is hunting at its finest! I made several similar attempts to do what y'all did, except my efforts were missing the most important ingredient...DUCKS! It's kind of hard to figure them out when there's nothing to watch!

I declare MallardHunter the "Waterfowler of the Week"! CONGRATS!

[cajun squealer]

Oh wait! MallardHunter just voiced opinions in support of DU.
I hereby publicly recant my previous post!

Sorry, cuz!

[RIP EM]

Hey Mallardhunter,.... would you please stop blabing the first thing that pop's into your head, and put a little thought into your posts !

Nice read !

You go boy !

Rip Em !

[gyver]

what also has to be taken into account is that hunting pressure plays a part in the migration not just weather. you get a couple of thousand ducks sitting on a refuge or other un-hunted area they can do a heck of a job keeping the water open. they will completely devoid the area of food before having to leave and go further south. this doesn't stop the migration but it does slow it down. nows the time to take the camcorder and decoys and calls and actually learn what a duck will and won't do. you'll be surprised. i 'd bet that i killed 95% of my ducks within 25 yds and less than 20 ft. high. know if i could just convince my skyblasting buddy that they will get closer than 50 yds and 200 ft high i could actually enjoy it more.

[mallardhunter]

what also has to be taken into account is that hunting pressure plays a part in the migration not just weather. you get a couple of thousand ducks sitting on a refuge or other un-hunted area they can do a heck of a job keeping the water open. they will completely devoid the area of food before having to leave and go further south. this doesn't stop the migration but it does slow it down

Quite the opposite. Using only your logic above and the factors you chose to include, let me show you that the more hunting pressure, the faster the migration will occur. A couple of thousand ducks need a given amount of food each day. Until they eat out the available food they will not migrate (assuming no snow). So, if the ducks are not hunted at all, they get to eat out every field, green timber area plus the refuges before they migrate. Put a hunter behind every tree and in every field every day, all day long, and the available food is only in the refuges. As soon as they eat out the refuges, they gotta leave, right? So increased hunting pressure actually speeds up the migration, not slows it down - using the factors you chose to mention.

Since you chose to ignore the night-feeding habits of ducks, which is not affected by hunting pressure, I did too. Factor in night feeding and you'll quickly realize that hunting pressure doesn't affect migration at all, because the ducks get to feed in those hunted area for 12 hours each night. Snow and cold weather affect migration.

i killed 95% of my ducks within 25 yds and less than 20 ft. high. know if i could just convince my skyblasting buddy that they will get closer than 50 yds and 200 ft high i could actually enjoy it more

My hat is off to you on that one. Congratulations. If everybody would shoot that way, duck hunting would be a lot better. I was hunting with some guys this year and they jumped up and shot at a duck about 60 yards as he made his first pass. "Why did you shoot at him that far away", I asked. "That's as close as he was gonna get", was their reply. "Well, you'll d___ sure never find out otherwise if you shoot at 'em like that, will you?" was my reply.

Let 'em work, let 'em land or at least stick those feet out and start backpedalling before even reaching for the gun. That's how the oldtimers taught me to duck hunt. The art is in getting 'em in range. Wingshooting skills are better demonstrated on the dove field. I hope you can educate your skybusting buddy, or find a new hunting partner. You are right in that you will enjoy it more. Good luck.

[gyver]

i love a good debate . think about how the hunting seasons actually have a migration pattern, start up north and move south. the past couple of years the seasons have opened faster than the weather changes. seems like that would work sort of like a defense in football, as the weather pushes them south they start hitting wave after wave of hunters. i've talked to and have heard of a few people claim that the ducks hang out in the non-huntable areas during the day and then night feed the honey holes at night.
i agree that weather is the #1 factor but the other variables don't help.
i ain't complaining about my season at all, i hate to say it but i bet i lost more ducks this year than i shot the last 2 seasons. drift wood pile ups, current, to fast for my dog, cucaburr fields. the problem with shooting them up close is tight patterns, either make skillet shots or might blow a wing apart.
it aint hunting if your seeing how far you can kill one, same goes for turkey hunting 40 yds. or closer.
i've got one buddy,17, he hung in their with me and learned alot. he now sounds like a susie in heat and calls when one talks back to him, no more overcalling, and we try to hold our shots until we have eye contact with the bird.
patience, patience, patience. it's not a competition, it's recreation that brings home the groceries.
302 days till next season

[tallahachie duke]

i was in Souix Falls,Sd 2 weeks ago and i t was 50 and no snow. Up there this morning and -8 and maybe about 6 inches. Like quail hunting, its probably several factors. But #1 is weather