Ducks arriving by the day...

[bullet225ho]

I feel there was WAY more water than anyone can imagine. I travel about a 300 mile radius around Warner Robins...Basically from McDonough in the north, to Albany in the South and Columbus to the West and Vidalia To the East. There was water everywhere in the second half of the season...actually even the end of the first split. I feel that ducks were sitting in places that they hadn't sat in for 10+ years... I looked and we haven't had this much rain since 1999. There was water in the middle of fields...every creek bottom was flooded...Flint river bottom in Reynolds was way out of its banks for many days.

I went to West Texas and ran into the same issues there. Way more water than normal. Ponds that were normally dry were half acre....tanks that held tons of ducks in past years were sparsely populated as most vegetation never made it to the surface as the water was 4ft deeper than normal. We saw birds and killed a few...but nothing like normal.

 

[Mexican Squealer]

Another great Snipe hunt

 

[Mexican Squealer]

And so it begins...the good, bad and the ugly of waterfowl management on the Atlantic Flyway. Planting season...corn, rice, chufa and jap millet. Not enough rain, too much rain...hogs, deer...warm winters with little migration...army worms...epic freezes in the north, ducks thick as bees..there will be highs, there will be lows. We can only hope, that when it’s time, there will be ducks...Good luck to all who understand it and live for it.