top ten states for duck harvest

[bigwater]

hello fellow hunters:

say has anyone seen any recent numbers regarding duck harvests by state for the last duck season... or if not for last season then the most recent numbers avail... i remember reading something a couple of years ago where Miss ranked like 8th or 9th in the nation... however miss ranked like 2nd or 3rd in average number of ducks harvested per hunter.
good luck and later bigwater

[gator]

bigwater, i think i saw at another joint that we were ranked something around 16th nationwide w/ missouri a close 18, i'll check...gator

[gator]

yep, according to this post, ole MS was 16th w/ 246, 700...down 11%...

1. Arkansas - 1,137,200 -19%

2. California - 974,100 -7%

3. Minnesota - 944,600 +10%

4. Texas - 924,400 -46%

5. Louisiana - 820,800 -31%

6. North Dakota - 530,600 +7%

7. Wisconsin - 529,500 +43%

8. Michigan - 416,600 +118%

9. Washington - 393,100 -7%

10. Illinois - 363,300 -9%

11. Oregon - 351,300 +10%

12. Tennessee - 313,200 -23%

13. Iowa - 287,200 -3%

14. South Dakota - 250,200 +4%

15. Pennsylvania - 248,100 n/c

16. Mississippi - 246,700 -11%

17. New York - 237,100 +27%

18. Missouri - 229,700 -59%

19. North Carolina - 227,400 -16%

20. Nebraska - 225,400 +5%

That is the lastest releases on Harvest #'s in '02-'03 by USF&WS....gator

[bigwater]

if those numbers are correct then why is it that calif. org. and wash get such long seasons. something doesn't seem right... nor does it seem right that freakin pennslvania killed more ducks than we do in Ms.
wonder if people are filling out there hip cards correctly? i also can't believe that the great state of south carolina isn't in the top 20 with all there flight trained or released ducks...

oh well shows what i know...

later bigwater

[Don Miller]

I think Webfoot posted that info. What I would "Truly" like to know is the havest data in the state of Michigan and Wisconsin. How many Man Days were hunted. This year must have been a high havest rate, per hunter per day for both state. Hey Webfoot, can you Crunch those numbers. I would like to know!!! Thanks for posting the info, very...very interesting info.

[grimes]

Notice that all the northern teir states harvests were up and the southern states were down.

Not enough cold, nasty weather to push the birds down????

[DeltaDawg1230]

Nope...they just cut the fields after it snows. Hell, I wouldn't leave either if i had food on top of snow.

[ducman77]

Maybe I can go up noth and hunt 60 days then come back home and hunt another 60 days.

[Don Miller]

It all depends on the weather. When the Mid-West is frozen out, things will get good for us. It didn't happen until the last two weeks of the season last year. As far as quality hunts go, I can remember the 88-89 season, the worst ever as far as duck numbers go, but one of the best I have ever had. Even though there was a 3 duck limit, our group mostly 3 to 4 hunters limited out more days than not. We spent most mid mornings filming ducks in the decoys. Did I mention we had three days in mid December that the temp was below 15 degrees without wind chill. It all depends on the WEATHER!!!!

[eastwoods]

AR must do a good job when they get here, because the highest aerial count for the state last year was 800,000 and 90% of those were holding on 2 refuges about 15 miles apart. The only other aerial count I know of was about 500,000 and again 90% were in the same place. I sincerely doubt the AR harvest was that good. Most groups I know from top to bottom were approx. 75% down on harvest, which is way different than there negative 19%.

I'd of thought MO and IL would have done better. They must have really hung north.

[Don Miller]

Our place in Arkansas had about a 40% decress in harvest since the 1999-2000 season. If you remember correctly, we had quite a bit of cold weather early. Example: sleet and snow storm in Starkvagas......MSU-vs-AR. in mid-November. I remember listening to the game at duck camp amounst some Hog fans. As I remember, State lost the game in overtime, but we had some awsome hunting for about the next two weeks.

[ducman77]

Mark,
That was a great year at Turkey Scratch. Dang near our limit every time we went out to the pit. I remember the place loaded with ducks weeks before season.

[eastwoods]

I'd consider myself a lucky one with only a 40% decrease since the 99-00 season.

I should have said 75% reduction on the what I consider an average annual harvest for last year (02-03), not from the year before. Since I said overall we had a 25% decrease from the year before the Fed's count of negative 19% could be accurate. Who'd a thunk!!!

50% reduction on the average typical year for 01-02.

25% reduction on the average for 00-01.

I'd say 99-00 was about average, we slaughtered them I'd say 15 days worth total but that's typical. Did ya'll see a pattern up there. The duck pickers in the state have observed the same thing. Guess when they started feeding them on those two refuges. Not to get anything started, but I'm sincerely hoping the real answer is snow and the refuge thing is just a coincidence. One of these years we'll find out. Hope it's this year. Been a long time coming.