GHOST95
Member
out
Last edited:
Duck Hunting East TN
- Thread starter GHOST95
- Start date
JJBraves
Well-Known Member
Yep, it's absolutely terrible. Now you can have a decent day every once in a while, when we get good cold fronts, but for the most part its bad at best. Goose hunting is a different story though.
Last edited:
mjwendorf
Well-Known Member
YES!
MickThompson
Well-Known Member
Flyways follow habitat and it's generally poor for waterfowl.
It's poorly managed. The area has more potential than it gets credit for, but if you look at any of the waterfowl-focused WMAs in the area (most of which are now draw units), it's gone downhill.
People talk about how they are no longer planted, and that may be a factor—but even worse is that there used to be timber holes everywhere; now all the timber is dead. Over 4 decades' worth of growth, gone.
The galling thing is this happened within the past 5 years. I'll let you figure out who is to blame for the fact TWRA was able to keep the habitat alive for over 50 years, but suddenly in the last decade the beavers were allowed to drown all the timber…you can find the names in the Hunting Guide.
We are nowhere near a flyway. As stated, the habitat to keep them here is non existent unless you have a private lake to manage the food on. One thing overlooked also is the fact we dont have really cold winters like we once had. You need it froze from the Kentucky border up into Canada to have good hunts here. That said every now and then you can have a decent hunt but you cant string together several in a row. Where i used to hunt the fly fishermen would walk through your decoys and not even think twice about it.
WilcoKen
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 26, 2015
- Messages
- 1,607
For a minute I thought we were talking about middle TN. It's the same here pretty much.
No food, no flyway, no cold weather. Seems like for years now there has been more focus on the cranes than anything. Rhea County has 2 refuges and most of the corn gets left standing that I've seen. Also all the TVA fields along the river, nobody farms them anymore. I remember 30 years ago they would all have corn or beans in them. No cranes were here and we had ducks. The last season I hunted here I think we killed maybe 20 the whole season and spent many days that we didnt even see a duck to blow a call at.
I was one of those guys that stayed mad at ducks and chased them all over. I haven't even thought about duck hunting in 5 years basically. Numerous reasons but #1 is just the simple fact we are in East Tennessee and it's NOT conducive to waterfowl habitat. Yes you will see localized ducks but guaranteed after opening morning you might as well consider never seeing them again. #2 is there simply is not a place that doesn't get hunted to death. We may have vast amounts of public land when it comes to mountains but good waterfowl habitat is NOT one of them.
JJBraves
Well-Known Member
Yep, we call them coots
Biggun4214
Well-Known Member
I don't even see the divers that were here just 8-10 years ago.
hoghunter65
Well-Known Member
Back in the early seventies, we had cold weather, I've seen Parksville lake freeze over, and we were covered up with ducks, I've not even seen a duck in 25 years.
I saw a big wad of blacks on center hill one time. I was fishing in early February.
Wooden Arrow
Well-Known Member
see blacks on the Holston here, as well as small creeks we used to jump shoot. nearly all property posted these days, and floating the Holston turns into a race you aren't gonna win in a canoe against jon boats with jetboat motors. used to see an idiot with an airboat. he'd run up and down the river trying to keep the birds moving. 
