DuckSouth.com

Have any of you die hard duck hunters seen the weather forecast for Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday?? Look at what is to the North and West of us......most of Missouri will be frozen up if these low temps materialize....that is where a lot of ducks have been holding....might give the ducks a push this way......let's hope so.....acornman

acornman--how low are the temps supposed to get? What we need is several days of below freezing temps in Missouri & Illinois. Hope that happens. I am about ready to declare this duck season a disaster.

The only way anything will push ducks in the numbers we need.....is if the projected low temperatures for those 3 days are actually the high temperatures for that region.........and THEN it'd have to be that way for about a week.

Yes, it's exciting to see temperatures below freezing, especially since we've been hard-pressed to get anything below 50 for lows. But in my experience (and that's all I have to rely on....and that hasn't been very reliable in the past 3 years), ICE MELTS, SNOW MELTS........ducks stay around the freeze line.

Who really knows where the ducks are?...........Until I see some, all reports are speculative. Yeah, I heard there were a bunch in Minnesota, too.........which tells me that if it's been warm enough for the birds to stay up there, we gonna have to have more than 3 days of freezing temperatures in Missouri to push the ducks down here.

When a body of water the ducks are using freezes.....they don't say. "O.K., guys.....time to migrate 2,000miles to the Delta"........rather, they say, "Hey, we gettin' squeezed-out......what a bitch!.......let's go over there to THAT pothole yonder, and use it 'til IT freezes over."

It takes a while for ALL THAT WATER up there to freeze enough to where it runs the ducks out.

Remember this picture? There wasn't a duck on that pothole a week before this picture was taken. The first day it had ducks there were about 2000 (low/high was 24/38). Second day......10, 000 (24/34). Third and fourth day.......12-15,000 in a hole 'bout the size of a football field(24/34 and 20/24). Fifth day........1,500 in a hole 'bout 30yds across(18/24).

The picture was taken at 8:00a.m. the sixth day. The 1500 ducks and 200 honkers flew-out to feed at 8:30a.m., fed for 45 minutes......and when they finished feeding they flew South, instead. It took us an hour to 'break-down' and when we drove back by the pothole, there was one duck in a hole in the ice 'bout the size of a paint can. 8 other ducks circled the pothole 6 times, then gave-up and flew South. 'You think the other 1491 ducks knew the pothole would be frozen by the time they finished feeding?

The high temperature that day was 24. The low that night was 8. The low the NEXT night was -11. By then, the ducks completely skipped ND and southern SK and wound-up in IA/SD, overnight. Now that's a significant 'push'. It's gonna take 5 or 6 of those 'events' to do us any good, now........as warm as it has been along the Canadian border over the last 3 weeks.

I guess my point is........high temps have to reach the freezing mark before there's any appreciable bird movement (the only kind that's gonna do us any good at this stage of the season). OR, it has to get DAMN COLD, REAL QUICK (as in the circumstances surrounding the photo).

I don't mean to burst yo bubble.........I hope we get ducks enough to shoot soon, too! I'm just trying to impress upon you, how bad it has to get, before a fat-laiden duck gets squeezed-out of an area.......It's a progression of significant weather events.......not an overnight slam-dunk.

Ditto.

Certainly some ducks are going to move. I'll take a trickle over nothing anyday.

'Lotta floks've set themselves up for a world o' disappointments over the last three years........thinkin' thoughts like that. I'm not gonna put myself through that, again.

Knock yourself out, buddy. I hope you're right.

Randy....slap, slap.

Take a look at this map. I found this site where they have implanted about 20 female specks/year with satellite transmitters in mid-July on 3 refuges in Alaska and tracked their movements.

Look at this map: 2 days from border to border! I'd be hard-pressed to do that in a car.



The ones I've looked at so far haven't made that border to border in 2 days feat, but have gradually worked their way down and back up. But look at the ones who go to Mexico.

http://mercury.bio.uaf.edu/~eric_rexsta ... litegeese/
Check out that site...too cool!

I just wish it'd get to be winter again and stay that way.

Wingman

All I know is when I saw the Green Bay Packers on tv last weekend and last year about this time playing football in short sleves in Green Bay, I'm not/ I wasn't killing ducks........... 3 weeks maybe a few but I'm with most in looking forward to a good season next year......this one is just about done.

The thing about this duck season is that its almost over and whats left is whats left. For the last couple of years I have heard how good the last couple of weeks of the season have been in the Delta area, so I planned my week of hunting in Mi'sippi for next week (11-17). The weather patterns north of Memphis are going to be below freezing this week (St Louis,20s.....Great Falls MT, lows of -20 with much snow). A friend of mine in Great Falls told me two weeks ago that the rivers and streams were covered with ducks and geese cause they were still open and unfrozen.
My point in all this is to say that it looks like the rest of the season has the potential to be good to great but certainly better overall than the last few weeks.....so get ready. I will be in Tunica/Dundee with Delta Duck and would like to meet some of you if you are in that area.
NOTE: Blue and White Diner in Tunica at lunch time!
INJ

done ordered another case of shells. Looking good to me. Of course Randy you know I like to put some steel in the air.

You know, that's kinda funny. Just last week I killed a female specklebelly in Katy, Texas with a radio transmitter looking thingy in her gizzard. I just thought it was a big old piece of granite rock she picked up in North Dakota to grind up all the corn she'd been eating.

I have the transmitter in the glove box of my truck.... that's why my microwave has been going off....

Couldn't resist.
Deadeye

In her gizzard? I bet that transmitter was around a mallard's neck at one time. Yep DD, the "mallard eating geese" theory is starting to hold a little water now.