Waterfowl Counts

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Dodge Man

Dodge Man

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Oct 15, 2003
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Dyersburg, TN
I look at them every year and I don't know how they come up with the numbers they do sometimes. I have been to a few of the refuges this year and they look empty. But they show counts in the thousands.

I also see most of the counts at a fraction of what they have been even just 5 years ago. I think the management of the Reelfoot refuges is what has hurt hunting in West TN as much as anything. Back in 2015/16 the January numbers were 150,000-263,000 ducks alone. Now this year it's barely over 10,000. They have quit pumping and holding water like they use to. I don't think the effort is put in to the refuges like it use to be.
 

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I asked a well known refuge's manager about the 58k duck count a couple weeks ago and he looked at the other GJ and said "58k? No the count is 48k..?, I told him he might want to check the website..

Black Bayou has had a known water problem for a few years now.. Overall duck numbers in this state are bad maybe worse in decades for this time of year...
 
Bgoodman30 said:
I asked a well known refuge's manager about the 58k duck count a couple weeks ago and he looked at the other GJ and said "58k? No the count is 48k..?, I told him he might want to check the website..

Black Bayou has had a known water problem for a few years now.. Overall duck numbers in this state are bad maybe worse in decades for this time of year...
Click to expand...
Black Bayou has always had the same problem with holding water. They used to pump it up and keep pumping every few days to keep it full. Now they pump it up a little and don't add anymore the rest of the season.
 
Went by a flooded field up the road from Black Bayou yesterday and there were several, several thousand ducks sitting on it. Didn't investigate the refuge though, we were in a hurry to get home.
 
Dodge Man said:
Black Bayou has always had the same problem with holding water. They used to pump it up and keep pumping every few days to keep it full. Now they pump it up a little and don't add anymore the rest of the season.
Click to expand...

I don't know about always I remember some of the commissioners toured it a few years back concerning the water issues.
 
Dodge Man said:
I look at them every year and I don't know how they come up with the numbers they do sometimes. I have been to a few of the refuges this year and they look empty. But they show counts in the thousands.

I also see most of the counts at a fraction of what they have been even just 5 years ago. I think the management of the Reelfoot refuges is what has hurt hunting in West TN as much as anything. Back in 2015/16 the January numbers were 150,000-263,000 ducks alone. Now this year it's barely over 10,000. They have quit pumping and holding water like they use to. I don't think the effort is put in to the refuges like it use to be.
Click to expand...

Look at the MS levels in 15/16 the counts were just a fraction of the birds the state was actually holding.. Never seen so many.
 
Bgoodman30 said:
I don't know about always I remember some of the commissioners toured it a few years back concerning the water issues.
Click to expand...
Maybe not always, I do remember hearing they would have to pump a few times a year if we didn't get rain.

Looking back and remembering the major MS river flooding in 2016, 17, 18 and 19. I imagine that messed up some of the water holding structures up around Reelfoot.
 
I went to Duck River this afternoon and wasn't impressed with what I saw at all. #1, never seen as little water as what's in there right now and #2, not many birds at all. I know they can be alot of places there that you can't see but just didn't see much, especially for this time of the year.
 
Dodge Man said:
It was warmer in South Dakota, Iowa and that whole northern region then it was in TN today!
Click to expand...

They've got an incoming cold front or occluded front at the moment. Looks like temps will keep dropping there.
 

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Saw the first flock of sandhills come over yesterday.
For whatever reason I think their "flyway" goes directly over my house. Normally see a crap ton of them every year.
 
RUGER said:
Saw the first flock of sandhills come over yesterday.
For whatever reason I think their "flyway" goes directly over my house. Normally see a crap ton of them every year.
Click to expand...
I saw more Sandhills back in November then I have seen the past few weeks. We had a pool at Crockett last weekend and normally the fields in that area are full of crains. We saw one field that had maybe 500 in its is about all I saw.
 
I'm hunting every day. No ducks, especially mallards. No improvement at all at Tigrett . Even with high water, which is now falling, no increase at all in birds, probably less than we had, which is none. I wonder if Horns Bluff has any at all? Im saying no. No traffic at all down the middle fork from horns bluff to the north fork. This is the worst season I have seen in 25 plus yrs hunting here. Fewest mallards ever seen in a season. I would bet , if could be proven, mallard counts are WAY down, much more than they realize.
 
Killed 42 total the last 3 days, about 60 percent being mallards. Averaged seeing around 250-300 ducks each day from daylight to 3 P.M.. In terms of seeing ducks, this is the worst I can remember.
 
Our roost count at night is up a good bit in the last week. We have noticed a uptick in mallards for sure but there seems to be a huge push of green wing teal and an unusual amount of shovelers.

Hopefully tomorrow is the day.
 
You all seen the bird cast live migration map? I won't pretend to know how accurate it is but it's fun to look at. Anyway I checked it this morning and it showed a pretty good amount of movement in west TN…all coming from the south. That would explain the teal and Hollywoods.
 

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