Post Season

[aunt betty]

All that flooded corn is worthless once it's got an inch or two of ice on it.

My buddies told me a tale of them showing up at the walk-ins to find that ice was too thick.
So they wandered around scouting and found some ducks that got frozen to the ice. A short time later they got a visit from mister green jeans. The rest of the story...lol
The hadn't signed in and didn't have guns but they did have ducks. Hmmm.

[DComeaux]

The problem I see down here, is that those who plant could possibly lose their little feed lot and I believe are the most vocal against any of this. I mentioned this in another forum where someone (a guide) posted that south Louisiana duck lodges were hurting. I told him that it must not hurt too bad, yet. No noise from that crowd, other than opposition.

[Rick]

...I mentioned this in another forum where someone (a guide) posted that south Louisiana duck lodges were hurting. I told him that it must not hurt too bad, yet. No noise from that crowd, other than opposition.

Perhaps because the squawkers also seem prone to blame "commercialization" for not making it easier for them to kill ducks.

Trust, btw, that while I'm critical of your stance on this stuff, you know I still love ya like family.

[DComeaux]

...I mentioned this in another forum where someone (a guide) posted that south Louisiana duck lodges were hurting. I told him that it must not hurt too bad, yet. No noise from that crowd, other than opposition.

Perhaps because the squawkers also seem prone to blame "commercialization" for not making it easier for them to kill ducks.

Trust, btw, that while I'm critical of your stance on this stuff, you know I still love ya like family.

Opposition is understood and expected, and I've never, ever had, nor do I have a beef with commercial operations. My thoughts is that none of them want to lose there planted grain for ducks. The problem with that, IMO, is that once this planted grain has nothing to attract, it will be too late for all of us. If this welfare type situation continues, it will be harder to change. No one will be stopped from hunting. The same harvest and flooding can continue.
Heck, most commercial places are in prime time without the hot crops, and some have been forever. Some of those are voicing their concerns behind the scene.

No hard feelings on this end, ever. We'll just keep on keeping on.

[aunt betty]

I don't complain about them fat fat rice fed ducks I've shot. mmmmm
The park ducks I shoot in DeWitt County tend to be skinny despite it being corn country.
Go down below I-70 and they're fat. Once they hit the rice they're fatter.
Just sayin cuz I like to eat them and the bigger the better.

[DComeaux]

I know the teal we took last teal season were greasy.

[Ericdc]

I know the teal we took last teal season were greasy.

Figure they stay pretty well fed next door at Rockefeller?


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[SpinnerMan]

All that flooded corn is worthless once it's got an inch or two of ice on it.

My buddies told me a tale of them showing up at the walk-ins to find that ice was too thick.
So they wandered around scouting and found some ducks that got frozen to the ice. A short time later they got a visit from mister green jeans. The rest of the story...lol
The hadn't signed in and didn't have guns but they did have ducks. Hmmm.

so how often does that happen? More importantly how often does it happen before the season is over

Up here it would happen almost every year. Sometimes only about 30 days into the season the sheltered shallow water starts freezing pretty solid. They actually redrew our zone lines for rich connected people that hunt flooded corn so they would have an extra week of hunting at the beginning of the season, which screwed all the public river hunters where things often don't get good until all the small ponds and backwaters start to freeze. But they didn't want to lose hunting geese to the end of January, so for geese, it is still central

[DComeaux]

I know the teal we took last teal season were greasy.

Figure they stay pretty well fed next door at Rockefeller?


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I do believe they do. The craws are full of a small green seed, lots of it. There are fresh strip mowed, flooded fields just 3 miles to our east for teal season that's not hunted. I have a habit of checking that on every bird, and during the main season I found no corn and maybe 1 or 2 with rice. Most had little amounts of natural vegetation and seeds.

[Ericdc]

I must often find teal with loads of tiny seeds in them more often than grain.


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[DComeaux]

Dig the ticks from your dogs paws.

32336851_1348596861908626_6209258933069021184_n.jpg

[Rick]

Yarch. Reminds me of how our government fixes things like, oh...say, baiting regulations.

[aunt betty]

Wait until the new AI God starts running things.
The dang thing is going to learn as it goes and they're dying to hand over the keys of humanity to "it".
Let's hope "it" doesn't notice waterfowl hunters.

[Deltaman]

Dig the ticks from your dogs paws.

32336851_1348596861908626_6209258933069021184_n.jpg

WOW.........never seen'em pack up between paw toes like that! Looks like it is time for a heavy duty yard/area treatment to kill the bastages.

[DComeaux]

That was a picture I took from someone who posted on the internet. Never had I seen such a thing.

[aunt betty]

Thought that thumb looked like a girly one but these days you never know.

[Darren]

There are similar, or worse, pictures of that kind of clustering but in their ears. Awful!

[aunt betty]

Got caught feeling my dog all over by the guys at the club and of course they made fun. Stuff like "damn his nuts are bigger than mine".
When I pulled a nice fat tick off him right in their face and said "better check yourselves" shut them right up.

[DComeaux]

Got Corn? If you don't think this is wide spread enough to influence a migration, then you haven't researched enough to know.

I even found a how to site for Legal Baiting.

FloodedCornDucks-768x557.jpg

Wonder why there's so much opposition to eliminate legal baiting? What about this is fair chase and ethical?

[aunt betty]

Yeah it's just like that in Wakanda near Oz, Kansas.

[SpinnerMan]

Got Corn? If you don't think this is wide spread enough to influence a migration, then you haven't researched enough to know.

There were 47 million ducks in the traditional breeding area. Of this 10 million are mallards. Then how many of the mallards are outside the traditional breeding area. Mallards are the park duck of all park ducks. Large numbers in nearly every suburb in America.

Do I think there are enough flooded corn hunting operations to have a measurable, let alone a major impact, no I do not. The millions of acres of no till corn and all the cooling lakes and warm water discharges, absolutely. I see it. That's why the mallards show up en masse AFTER the flooded corn operations in the area are frozen out. They don't arrive before the flooded corn is frozen and stay. Granted some do, but the bulk of our mallards show up after and it clearly is not impacting them. The reason they go no further south is the dry field picked corn and all the open water along with no hunting pressure at all once our season closes and you all are still banging on them as hard as you can for another month.

Wonder why there's so much opposition to eliminate legal baiting? What about this is fair chase and ethical?

I'm sorry you have a problem with me planting food plots for deer, but I don't see anything unethical or not fair chase about it. Same thing if you get that unpicked rice on a crawfish operation that the ducks are feeding heavily in. Are you going to say, nope, can't hunt here? The hunting is just too good. I see no difference on creating the same thing with the intention of killing ducks and geese. Next winter me and a buddy are probably going to shoot hogs over feeders in Florida. Nothing unethical and they aren't penned in. Which I have no probably with killing, I just don't find it enjoyable, penned animals. I just call it farming and not hunting.

Many states allow baiting. I have no problem with that nor would I for waterfowl. Hunt on the X or create your own X. I just don't see a difference other than jealousy by those that can't afford to create their own X. Something all the rules in the world will never stop, but just create more hoops making it even more restricted to the richest who can create their own X.

[DComeaux]

Got Corn? If you don't think this is wide spread enough to influence a migration, then you haven't researched enough to know.

There were 47 million ducks in the traditional breeding area. Of this 10 million are mallards. Then how many of the mallards are outside the traditional breeding area. Mallards are the park duck of all park ducks. Large numbers in nearly every suburb in America.

Do I think there are enough flooded corn hunting operations to have a measurable, let alone a major impact, no I do not. The millions of acres of no till corn and all the cooling lakes and warm water discharges, absolutely. I see it. That's why the mallards show up en masse AFTER the flooded corn operations in the area are frozen out. They don't arrive before the flooded corn is frozen and stay. Granted some do, but the bulk of our mallards show up after and it clearly is not impacting them. The reason they go no further south is the dry field picked corn and all the open water along with no hunting pressure at all once our season closes and you all are still banging on them as hard as you can for another month.

Wonder why there's so much opposition to eliminate legal baiting? What about this is fair chase and ethical?

I'm sorry you have a problem with me planting food plots for deer, but I don't see anything unethical or not fair chase about it. Same thing if you get that unpicked rice on a crawfish operation that the ducks are feeding heavily in. Are you going to say, nope, can't hunt here? The hunting is just too good. I see no difference on creating the same thing with the intention of killing ducks and geese. Next winter me and a buddy are probably going to shoot hogs over feeders in Florida. Nothing unethical and they aren't penned in. Which I have no probably with killing, I just don't find it enjoyable, penned animals. I just call it farming and not hunting.

Many states allow baiting. I have no problem with that nor would I for waterfowl. Hunt on the X or create your own X. I just don't see a difference other than jealousy by those that can't afford to create their own X. Something all the rules in the world will never stop, but just create more hoops making it even more restricted to the richest who can create their own X.

Deer baiting always seems to pop up in these conversations. Deer don't migrate across continents every year. What a state does with their heard is for them to decide, and I have no problem with baiting deer, as you can be selective in your shots. High fence is another item I don't care for. I've been to one place on an invite, paid, in south Texas and have never done it again. It just doesn't seem like hunting to me, to each his own. I've hunted deer over bait for years, lots of years not taking any.
Can't say that happens with ducks. 12 to 15 man limits continuously, this is slaughter..... Conservation? .......But this is not my beef, the lack of migrating ducks for us is, and is a major concern for many down this way.

Hogs are fair game. They are over populated, and destructive to crops and other lands. Take all you want, over bait, at night, from a helicopter, using tannerite, (saw a video) matters not to me.

It's not jealousy, it about the possibly of altering a birds natural migration, with a majority of those not reaching their normal destinations. We will not know if this has affected the migration, which has changed over the last twenty years, until it is stopped. I think they're many to our north, and a few down this way, that don't want to know the answer. It's really interesting that the decline for us in numbers just so happens to coincide with the push for flooded corn as a "conservation" tool. (1998)

[aunt betty]

???
Sometime take a little gander at some of the public hunting areas south of I-70.
Carlisle, Rend Lake, Crab Orchard Lake, Horseshoe Lake, etc. They all have huge areas of corn especially the Carlisle walk-ins.
That place can hold a shit ton of ducks and it does.

Missouri has some public areas comparable to Carlisle walk-ins too and they hunt over bum bum bum...corn that's been flooded by the state. Same thing different state. There's an area by Kennett, Mo (home of Cheryl Crow) that's pretty nice. Sign in and go hunt.

Oh. I forgot Union County Conservation Area. More corn.

The best years at where I hunted in the past were years where the corn failed either to get planted or just got out-weeded by the weeds. The weedy years ROCK but you have to get used to carrying a pound of them damned burrs on your waders.

[aunt betty]

Golf course goose hunting. Now I've seen it all.

[SpinnerMan]

Sometime take a little gander at some of the public hunting areas south of I-70.
Carlisle, Rend Lake, Crab Orchard Lake, Horseshoe Lake, etc. They all have huge areas of corn especially the Carlisle walk-ins.
That place can hold a **** ton of ducks and it does.

Take away the lakes and open water. No ducks. Take away the flooded corn. Still lots of ducks because of the millions of acres of corn in the area. I hunted snows at Carlisle this spring. We actually rented a lodge that is one of this big high-end hunt clubs. The massive water pumps were sitting right next to our rooms.

All it does is help concentrate the ducks. I don't like that.

The "solution" is not to make it more expensive to legally bait. If there is one, it is to make it less expensive.

Look at the deer hunting example. If only one person in the area baited, it would be a huge advantage. However, since it is affordable for almost every hunter to bait, bait is far less effective.

But look at the cost of baiting waterfowl. It is cost prohibitive for the average group of guys or small club. This gives a huge advantage to the big clubs and the rich guys.

If every field that was hunted was baited, it would make baiting far less effective.

All the bait in the world won't hold ducks after they lose all their open water or snow gets too deep to make baiting impractical.

And for baiting to be effective for a season, you can't be banging on them every day of the season. They ain't that stupid. Look at how Rick's place runs their operations. They quit hunting by 9:30 every day. You need a ton of land and you can't hunt it hard and it is very expensive. If all the neighbors are running smaller bait operations, the ducks will be scattered and the bait far less effective.

To change the migration, you have to take away the water, which isn't going to happen. You also need to kill the short stopping birds much more than we do and the long migrating birds much less than we do. That too is not going to happen either. This is a "problem" generations in the making and will take generations to undo.

[aunt betty]

?
It's like $7.99 for a 50# bag of corn "for your deer feeder" all over NEAR.
Not sure if ducks will eat it.

Hey I got a corn story..a million of em but this one is ok.

One day after I'd driven by them 3 little piles of corn where they loaded the semi at harvest a few too many times I stopped and got out the flat shovel and bucket. (every 4x4 should have that as standard equipment)
I scooped up the corn and dumped it by the frozen pond on the air base where the geese stay.

Good for the karma. That afternoon it was blizzardy and I had a pair land in my decoys. Boom boom merry Christmas.

Down here it is completely possible to free-lance goose hunt. You knock on a lot of doors and get lucky sometimes where they steer you to a better place where old farmer whatever can't sleep on account of them damned geese.

[DComeaux]

Sometime take a little gander at some of the public hunting areas south of I-70.
Carlisle, Rend Lake, Crab Orchard Lake, Horseshoe Lake, etc. They all have huge areas of corn especially the Carlisle walk-ins.
That place can hold a **** ton of ducks and it does.

Take away the lakes and open water. No ducks. Take away the flooded corn. Still lots of ducks because of the millions of acres of corn in the area. I hunted snows at Carlisle this spring. We actually rented a lodge that is one of this big high-end hunt clubs. The massive water pumps were sitting right next to our rooms.

All it does is help concentrate the ducks. I don't like that.

The "solution" is not to make it more expensive to legally bait. If there is one, it is to make it less expensive.

Look at the deer hunting example. If only one person in the area baited, it would be a huge advantage. However, since it is affordable for almost every hunter to bait, bait is far less effective.

But look at the cost of baiting waterfowl. It is cost prohibitive for the average group of guys or small club. This gives a huge advantage to the big clubs and the rich guys.

If every field that was hunted was baited, it would make baiting far less effective.

All the bait in the world won't hold ducks after they lose all their open water or snow gets too deep to make baiting impractical.

And for baiting to be effective for a season, you can't be banging on them every day of the season. They ain't that stupid. Look at how Rick's place runs their operations. They quit hunting by 9:30 every day. You need a ton of land and you can't hunt it hard and it is very expensive. If all the neighbors are running smaller bait operations, the ducks will be scattered and the bait far less effective.

To change the migration, you have to take away the water, which isn't going to happen. You also need to kill the short stopping birds much more than we do and the long migrating birds much less than we do. That too is not going to happen either. This is a "problem" generations in the making and will take generations to undo.

Spinner, even if I wanted to plant (bait), planting in a natural, uncontrolled, brackish marsh is not an option, for me or the majority of those that hunt it. Being able to bait is not the issue.
The cheapest way is a few sacks of deer corn in the pond. Those are sold on every street corner down here during the deer season. I wouldn't want everyone doing this, though. We'd wipe out the population in short order. You think commercial harvest put a hurting on em, try letting everyone bait for a few seasons and see what happens. Limits for everyone.

I hear-tell that the feds are banking on not everyone getting their limits in their management plan of the population, thus the liberal seasons and bag limits. I guess they figure that those with the funds necessary to plant for ducks aren't enough to hurt the population, but this number is increasing, rapidly. Tie that in with the refuges doing this, non hunted, and there we have the ingredients for migration alteration.

Water without the unnatural, over abundance of food is not a duck magnet. They can only sit on an open bathtub of water for so long without having to find food.