Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the idea being thrown out by a few of the msduckers about, "having an off season" so that the next year the ducks will be stupid or something is a terrible idea?
I've also heard the idea thrown out there that one good idea to drive the manabees out is to draw every year to see who gets to duck hunt. Well this idea might do that (drive the manabees out), along with piss alot of people off and ruin alot of guys winters.
Well these are just my thoughts about some of the things I've been reading. If I misinterpretted anyones posts, feel free to let me know, but I'm pretty sure I know what I've read.
Oh yeah; this part is not for everyone, but I'm also getting the vibe that some of you 30/3 supporters believe that because the season gets shortened, there won't be any days that you don't get skunked or not see a duck. I hate to be the first one to tell you this, but you will still have days like this and still won't be able to kill a limit everytime you go, hell some of you working guys won't even get to go but 8 DAYS . Again I repeat this isn't for all of you 30/3 supporters.
Anyway let me know what you think,
Chopper
season close?
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Bustin' Ducks
- Duck South Addict
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- Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:17 pm
- Location: Meridian, MS
Damn good call Bullet....Chopper..Have you NOT been hunting lately??????
If so, WHERE?? bcuz there AINT no DUCKS...Sounds like you've been hit in the head by a Mojo 1 too many times...This is an off-season..dumb dumb
If so, WHERE?? bcuz there AINT no DUCKS...Sounds like you've been hit in the head by a Mojo 1 too many times...This is an off-season..dumb dumb
I may go to Heaven, or I may go to hell....But one thing is for certain..It'll be after Duck season!!
Really though, chopper does have a good point. You know, the duck numbers are there. The cold weather we need to push ducks down isnt. If we closed the season or went to 30 and 3 and got all the weather we needed up north everybody would be sittin around being pissed off that we didnt have 60 and 6.
Now everyone on this site knows that when the temp is 65 degrees in minnesota and south dakota at the end of December , that the concentration of ducks will not be in Mississippi. All we need is patience. We cant expect to slam ducks year in and year out. We have to just wait it out and mother nature will be back in our corner.
The bad years have come and went as have the awesome years. Just keep your guns loaded and ready for them big ol heads when they get here. The duck numbers are here we just have to have the cold weather.
Now everyone on this site knows that when the temp is 65 degrees in minnesota and south dakota at the end of December , that the concentration of ducks will not be in Mississippi. All we need is patience. We cant expect to slam ducks year in and year out. We have to just wait it out and mother nature will be back in our corner.
The bad years have come and went as have the awesome years. Just keep your guns loaded and ready for them big ol heads when they get here. The duck numbers are here we just have to have the cold weather.
Bustin Ducks, are you really kidding? Do you really think we need an off season? If so in my mind you are an idiot! It might be an off season to you this year, but some people kill ducks on a regular basis, and don't get on here and gripe daily about the 15 ducks they've killed this year.
So to the answer to your question is YES I've been hunting lately. And yes we have still been killing ducks and seeing tons!
I appreciate your opinion
So to the answer to your question is YES I've been hunting lately. And yes we have still been killing ducks and seeing tons!
I appreciate your opinion
!..dumb dumb
In all honestly, I would like to see the season length stay the same at 60 days, but reduce the bag limit to 4 with maybe a 3 mallard limit. Other ducks would have to be factored in. It's obviously just my opinion, but I think 4 ducks are enough to make most folks feel good about a day's hunt. I wish I knew for certain that we were not pushing it with the mallard population, but I lived throught the days in the 70's when you could kill 10 pintails, and where are we now with them? I wish I could get past the uneasy feeling that we are approaching a crash point with mallards and it will be drastic when it happens. Bottom line, there is a nagging suspicion in the pit of my stomach that says the numbers are wrong on mallards for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the push coming from the special interests where money and politics are involved. If they let me decide, I would reduce the bag limit on mallards but keep the days in the field until I was sure it was "just the weather." But, I'm not at all sure they are going to let me decide! And, I have been wrong before!
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Bustin' Ducks
- Duck South Addict
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- Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:17 pm
- Location: Meridian, MS
Chopper...I never said I was for an "off-season"..I was saying with minimal ducks that are here it seems to be an "Off-season"....
Bullet..I totally agree with you on the aspect of the weather pushing the dudks down to Mississippi...However, I think that the MS Flyway may have been shifted West somehow...I just left OKlahoma the week before last..and there are ducks and Geese everywhere!!
Bullet..I totally agree with you on the aspect of the weather pushing the dudks down to Mississippi...However, I think that the MS Flyway may have been shifted West somehow...I just left OKlahoma the week before last..and there are ducks and Geese everywhere!!
I may go to Heaven, or I may go to hell....But one thing is for certain..It'll be after Duck season!!
It has been cold enough for ducks to push, plenty cold enough.
The problem is the same thing it has been for a half dozen years, there is no water, and what water is there is hammered to death by hunters.
15 years of return usage to the delta has been destroyed by this.
Ducks come, get shot at once, and they leave, because there are no places they know are safe, because they have never been here before.
The only thing that will fix this is at minimum 30/3, but can the duck hunting every other year for 6 would straighten it out just fine.
It's too much pressure and no water, and that is what it has been for a half a decade. More than half the ducks alive today dont even know this place exists. However go look in OKlahoma and see what is up.
The problem is the same thing it has been for a half dozen years, there is no water, and what water is there is hammered to death by hunters.
15 years of return usage to the delta has been destroyed by this.
Ducks come, get shot at once, and they leave, because there are no places they know are safe, because they have never been here before.
The only thing that will fix this is at minimum 30/3, but can the duck hunting every other year for 6 would straighten it out just fine.
It's too much pressure and no water, and that is what it has been for a half a decade. More than half the ducks alive today dont even know this place exists. However go look in OKlahoma and see what is up.
every day is duck season for me. it never ends for me the law dogs just tell me when i can shoot them and when i cant! draining water.... waiting for it to dry up.... preparing the ground...planting..... sweating a little bit..... practice blowing ducks calls... working the dog.... shooting some doves to get me ready...... scout for some teal (while beating down them GATORS) ia m just glad to be able to do that when i want to.... dont get me wrong i love to kill some ducks .. i will shut up now just happy to be here keep em straight out there!
I think that hunters fail to realise that when there is no water, the usable habitat for ducks is reduced to a fraction of what we used to consider normal.
Let's say 1/10 th it's normal deminsions. That is how big the habitat actually is, it doesnt matter how big the delta is, it is the water that counts.
When you apply the amount of pressure we do today on normal water conditions, you get on reaction from the ducks.
When you apply the same pressure to 1/10th water you get a completely different reaction, and weather or anything else will stop this change.
We dont believe that water levels and the relationshiop of applied pressure to them will change the movement and usage of ducks. Nobody wants to believe that, but look at the behavior changes. 1000 ducks, you get them up, they dont come back. What causes that? No imprinting?
Night flyers, no chance to shoot at them because they move before you can get to them. What other behaviors have you seen that are different?
Why are they not acting like the old days? Because they dont have the security and safety to act that way. They are ducks who dont know anything about this area, and react to it by being far more safe than sorry.
If we dont let these ducks get in here, move around, stay awhile, find several places they consider safe, so they will come back next year and have knowledge of where to go when you run them out of one hole, this pattern will never change. It's too much pressure on a tiny water resource.
Let's say 1/10 th it's normal deminsions. That is how big the habitat actually is, it doesnt matter how big the delta is, it is the water that counts.
When you apply the amount of pressure we do today on normal water conditions, you get on reaction from the ducks.
When you apply the same pressure to 1/10th water you get a completely different reaction, and weather or anything else will stop this change.
We dont believe that water levels and the relationshiop of applied pressure to them will change the movement and usage of ducks. Nobody wants to believe that, but look at the behavior changes. 1000 ducks, you get them up, they dont come back. What causes that? No imprinting?
Night flyers, no chance to shoot at them because they move before you can get to them. What other behaviors have you seen that are different?
Why are they not acting like the old days? Because they dont have the security and safety to act that way. They are ducks who dont know anything about this area, and react to it by being far more safe than sorry.
If we dont let these ducks get in here, move around, stay awhile, find several places they consider safe, so they will come back next year and have knowledge of where to go when you run them out of one hole, this pattern will never change. It's too much pressure on a tiny water resource.
I disagree with both bustin' ducks and Jim Walker.
I do not think the flyway has shifted west.
Thats just stupid. Ducks have been flying this way for thousands of years, and aren't going to stop. They may not come down until there is water and cold weather though. On the other hand I don't believe 30/3 will do anything besides limit the number of ducks harvested, which everyone isn't "wearing them out" according to the posts, so what is the point of that?
On the other hand, Jim you say that fifteen years of usage has been destroyed by no water, and being hammered to death. Well don't you think people hunt them in other states too? Or do the leave MS to find safe refuge in the rice fields of Arkansas. They get shot at all the way down, and there is nothing that we can do about that. And don't forget that there has been low water years before, and guess what happened the next year when the water was up and the temps were cold. DUCKS!
I do not think the flyway has shifted west.
Thats just stupid. Ducks have been flying this way for thousands of years, and aren't going to stop. They may not come down until there is water and cold weather though. On the other hand I don't believe 30/3 will do anything besides limit the number of ducks harvested, which everyone isn't "wearing them out" according to the posts, so what is the point of that?
On the other hand, Jim you say that fifteen years of usage has been destroyed by no water, and being hammered to death. Well don't you think people hunt them in other states too? Or do the leave MS to find safe refuge in the rice fields of Arkansas. They get shot at all the way down, and there is nothing that we can do about that. And don't forget that there has been low water years before, and guess what happened the next year when the water was up and the temps were cold. DUCKS!
Arkansas has been no better no matter what marketing hype you hear.
The idea that the ducks did not, or cannot change flyway patterns doesn't make any sense by any stretch of the imgaination. You may not want to believe they have changed, if you want imperical data to support the claim then check out the leases on huning property in OK that have escalated 300% in the last 4 years because of unprescedented numbers of waterfowl.
Even if severe weather did force a large number of birds into the region, they would be in and out just as quickly as we have seen the last several years.
Ducks accumulate large numbers in a general area when there are multiple generations of ducks using the area and bringing new ducks with them, and using a given area for extended periods of time. Obviously that takes multiple generations, or years, to begin to establish itself once it has been disrupted, an event which took place some 7 years ago when the first rain was on Dec 5 or thereabout and the next year on Dec 22nd. It has continued in dry conditions while the pressure has grown ever larger.
Ducks are not rocket scientist and they dont have to be to react to conditions just as they have been doing. Long time well established usage patterns have been destroyed, and what you see in their place is ducks with someplace to go besides where you are.
Ducks commonly IE daily use open fields to feed in the north. What happens when they get down here? Can you see the Mason Dixon from 3,000 feet? Why do they change their patterns of land usage within the same migration? It's because of safety factors.
What it is going to take for hunters to face this grim reality is a season with plenty of water and lots of cold up north, when the train doesnt come sailing down the track as expected, they will have to look at other options.
The idea that the ducks did not, or cannot change flyway patterns doesn't make any sense by any stretch of the imgaination. You may not want to believe they have changed, if you want imperical data to support the claim then check out the leases on huning property in OK that have escalated 300% in the last 4 years because of unprescedented numbers of waterfowl.
Even if severe weather did force a large number of birds into the region, they would be in and out just as quickly as we have seen the last several years.
Ducks accumulate large numbers in a general area when there are multiple generations of ducks using the area and bringing new ducks with them, and using a given area for extended periods of time. Obviously that takes multiple generations, or years, to begin to establish itself once it has been disrupted, an event which took place some 7 years ago when the first rain was on Dec 5 or thereabout and the next year on Dec 22nd. It has continued in dry conditions while the pressure has grown ever larger.
Ducks are not rocket scientist and they dont have to be to react to conditions just as they have been doing. Long time well established usage patterns have been destroyed, and what you see in their place is ducks with someplace to go besides where you are.
Ducks commonly IE daily use open fields to feed in the north. What happens when they get down here? Can you see the Mason Dixon from 3,000 feet? Why do they change their patterns of land usage within the same migration? It's because of safety factors.
What it is going to take for hunters to face this grim reality is a season with plenty of water and lots of cold up north, when the train doesnt come sailing down the track as expected, they will have to look at other options.
I kinda lean toward ya Jim on the water issue. Its very true that every little field these days has 2 or 3 shotguns waiting on a duck to come in it. Ducks do need safe havens to go when they get shot at. They get shot at the whole way down the flyway( that must suck) and when they want to sit down and relax, well guess what, boom boom boom. When all the factotrs come together and we start havin the kick booty years again, I motion for all the guys on this site to get together and have one hell of a party. Lets get one up for next year. ( Im kinda optimistic) 
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