May Pond Count Numbers

[SWAG]

I can remember some really good hunts in the late 80's and early 90's, post point system (2 mallard-3 duck total limit days). If I remember correctly for a couple or three seasons we only had 30 days. That caused a lot of duck hunters to give it up. That also made it less competative. That is when I started hunting public land on my own during my college years. If there were 5 boat trailers at the landing on a weekend we thought that was crowded. With that being said everyone killed there limits quickly. Now it is common to see as many as 20 plus parties hunting the same place on a week day. I certainly don't wish for 3/30 again but you could venture out on public land and work ducks without being surrounded by the flash of spinning wing decoys and the constant noise of highballing duck calls.

This!!! Sometimes we did not even launch until 8:30 or 9.

I can remember a lot of hunts in the 80s and a few in the early 90s when it was the norm to not leave the house going duck hunting til sun-up. This was not public land, but the scenario of killing mallards in woods or in sloughs as they left rice or bean fields was the same whether it be private or public land that was being hunted. We killed plenty of ducks between 8:00 and 10:00 AM. Sometimes hunts still only lasted 30 minutes or less. We killed a much higher percentage of mallards during this time frame as well. Now gadwall and wigeon are 50% of our bag.

[Hambone]

I have some of the same recollections as SWAG. But in own experience, the higher mallard percentage was the product of more selectivity - knowing that we only had 3 ducks for a limit, we would wait for perfect decoy shots on greenheads only, then pick up 1 more of another species to finish up.

There is no doubt that gadwall populations have greatly increased over the last 20 or more years. It stands to reason that with more gadwalls and higher limits, they are going to comprise more of the ducks we take - it has certainly happened in my group.

Don Miller said it...there is no easy solution.

[the tree]

One change I think weve realized in the past 10 years is the weather. I know weve had several snows and freezings, but I cant remember many hard artic blast coming north to south. Seem to come more west to east. Maybe birds that used to fly down to Mississippi can avoid the blast by skirting west towards Oklahoma?

[Don Miller]

One change I think weve realized in the past 10 years is the weather. I know weve had several snows and freezings, but I cant remember many hard artic blast coming north to south. Seem to come more west to east. Maybe birds that used to fly down to Mississippi can avoid the blast by skirting west towards Oklahoma?

I remember one really early artic blast, then many that followed. The Arkansas opener of the 1999-2000 season. We had a lease in Arkansas and pounded the ducks in MS and AR that season. One thing that still sticks in my mind is after finishing out an eight man early that morning, watching the AR-vs-MSU football game from Starkville on TV that day. About halftime the temp dropped and it sleeted and snowed it's booty off the rest of the game. This happened to be the weekend before Thanksgiving. That set the stage for one of the best duck seasons I ever had.

[Don Miller]

One change I think weve realized in the past 10 years is the weather. I know weve had several snows and freezings, but I cant remember many hard artic blast coming north to south. Seem to come more west to east. Maybe birds that used to fly down to Mississippi can avoid the blast by skirting west towards Oklahoma?

I remember one really early artic blast, then many that followed. The Arkansas opener of the 1999-2000 season. We had a lease in Arkansas and pounded the ducks in MS and AR that season. One thing that still sticks in my mind is after finishing out an eight man early that morning, watching the AR-vs-MSU football game from Starkville on TV that day. About halftime the temp dropped and it sleeted and snowed it's booty off the rest of the game. This happened to be the weekend before Thanksgiving. That set the stage for one of the best duck seasons I ever had.

[H20 Fowl]

The 99-00 season is the season to which all others are compared! I don't believe it will ever be topped.

[Glen Livet]

The success of our duck seasons depends on 3 things (in order of importance):

1) cold weather (especially fromMissouri North)
2) low water (when rivers like the White, St Francis, Cache, and Mississippi are out of their banks the birds get spread too thin)
3) high duck population (this is a distant third but we can't hunt them if they don't exist)

If you think back to your good seasons I would bet 2 or 3 of these conditions were in play. In your bad seasons maybe only one was in play. For example, last year was a tough year for most folks. The only factor we had was a high duck population. All the Arkansas Rivers were up and we didn't have any cold weather. Think back to 98/99 and 99/00. We had high populations and really cold weather.

Fact of the matter is our success falls into the hands of the good Lord. Most of us are going to be in blinds during the season no matter how bad it may be. We just need to enjoy every aspect of the hunt while we can.

[Deltamud77]

The success of our duck seasons depends on 3 things (in order of importance):

1) cold weather (especially fromMissouri North)
2) low water (when rivers like the White, St Francis, Cache, and Mississippi are out of their banks the birds get spread too thin)
3) high duck population (this is a distant third but we can't hunt them if they don't exist)

If you think back to your good seasons I would bet 2 or 3 of these conditions were in play. In your bad seasons maybe only one was in play. For example, last year was a tough year for most folks. The only factor we had was a high duck population. All the Arkansas Rivers were up and we didn't have any cold weather. Think back to 98/99 and 99/00. We had high populations and really cold weather.

Fact of the matter is our success falls into the hands of the good Lord. Most of us are going to be in blinds during the season no matter how bad it may be. We just need to enjoy every aspect of the hunt while we can.

+1

[fieldt76]

definitely didn't have those things this year. frikin water everywhere, hot as crap