teal habitat

[polar]

Wondering if you had information about teal habitat. Where I have seen them has usually been around open water. Are they very likely to be in the timber also.

Thanks Polar

[Don Miller]

Usually on shallow flats of open water. They are not as likely to be in thick cypress or tupelo timber. Abandoned catfish ponds with moist soil grasses and ankle to knee deep water seem to be a favorite of teal as well.

[eastwoods]

We shoot a few green wings in timber during regular season, but never a bluewing.

The rice is late this year and if you can find one still holding water there will definetly be teal in it. It's about a 1 in 10 year chance with the new varieties they plant today. Years ago it was every year. I always like to go where the water is coming into the field because more times than not it's a little opening for the birds and perhaps 6 dekes.

Today most of the teal gunning is on large natural lakes or manmade reservoirs and in the bays/sloughs off of the rivers unless your on the coast.

[Wingman]

We have so many old fishponds around here. That is the only place I've ever seen them. They feed the same way that shovelers do, in that shallow, nasty, muddy, stagnant water. But nobody would dare eat a shoveler under those conditions...yet teal are prized table-fare. Go figure.

Never shot a greenwing in the early season, just bluewings.

Wingman

[hawkeye]

Yeah wingman, but I've also seen so many shovelors that you couldn't grease another one in sitting on sewage lagoons, but don't see many teal birds there. To me, that's where they separate themselves.