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Levee Jumper said:
It truly is terrible right now. Maybe it will make about half of everybody sell their stuff and take up golf.
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That would be fine by me. It would drive down the competition. What we need to happen is a reduction in season length and split it up to catch early migrating waterfowl as well as later migrators like Mallards and some geese.
 
Bgoodman30 said:
Some good news with higher than average counts north of St Louis. Of course due to not migrating south timely. If the weather doesn't change drastically this could be one of the worse seasons in recent history..
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MickThompson said:
Following closely on the heels of all the other worse seasons in recent history that seem to be piling up lately
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After several "most ducks ever counted" in the spring years that turned into "worst season ever" years, I am soured on all of it. Not selling my stuff, just very choosey about picking my spots when I go. Used to I could shrug off driving three plus hours and not seeing much. I just can't justify it now. Especially not when it becomes an every weekend occurrence.
 
Smashdn said:
After several "most ducks ever counted" in the spring years that turned into "worst season ever" years, I am soured on all of it. Not selling my stuff, just very choosey about picking my spots when I go. Used to I could shrug off driving three plus hours and not seeing much. I just can't justify it now. Especially not when it becomes an every weekend occurrence
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100% agree with this statement. I'm not missing it one bit this year.
 
I know little to nothing about ducks and not in the fly way being in middle tn. But we do have a few spots that keep goodies and hunt them a few times a year. Keep cameras on them, and this time last year we had them we don't at all this year. Only had one day where we had a few. Again deer and turkey hunter here so it it interesting to hear how bad it is.
 
Smashdn said:
After several "most ducks ever counted" in the spring years that turned into "worst season ever" years, I am soured on all of it. Not selling my stuff, just very choosey about picking my spots when I go. Used to I could shrug off driving three plus hours and not seeing much. I just can't justify it now. Especially not when it becomes an every weekend occurrence.
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Took the words right out of my mouth
 
Smashdn said:
After several "most ducks ever counted" in the spring years that turned into "worst season ever" years, I am soured on all of it. Not selling my stuff, just very choosey about picking my spots when I go. Used to I could shrug off driving three plus hours and not seeing much. I just can't justify it now. Especially not when it becomes an every weekend occurrence.
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You obviously have not looked at the recent spring counts because they have been dropping by 1 million + breeding pairs every year for the past 6 years. The mallard breeding pair population is half what it was in 2016.
 

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Smashdn said:
After several "most ducks ever counted" in the spring years that turned into "worst season ever" years, I am soured on all of it. Not selling my stuff, just very choosey about picking my spots when I go. Used to I could shrug off driving three plus hours and not seeing much. I just can't justify it now. Especially not when it becomes an every weekend occurrence.
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Dodge Man said:
You obviously have not looked at the recent spring counts because they have been dropping by 1 million + breeding pairs every year for the past 6 years. The mallard breeding pair population is half what it was in 2016.
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Everything was better in 2016...... :confused: Including the weather!
 
Bgoodman30 said:
Nice. Yep duck lease only looking to be worth it if you can pay half and start hunting in January... Taking off in the summer usually cost me more money in lost opportunities but I still take my share.. I love fishing in the gulf I have a CC boat in Orange beach and sometimes Its hard to find a crew to go out. Holla..
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Holler if you need someone to go ! I make 1-2 trips to fl to fish inshore and I'm off during the summer

I'm pretty much done duck hunting here beside few local wood duck spots and a yearly trip to Texas for a good 3-4 day hunt - this year was our best by far there
 
It's sad really. It's a game of the haves and the have nots in AR. Even some of the haves are struggling right now and the have nots are SOL…. By haves I mean like the white oak duck woods etc. Spots where they can have their own private reserves. West TN is dead right now most folks I run with aren't even hunting…
 
drake799 said:
I'm hoping with this terrible season more birds will survive to make it back north this spring to breed. Could be wishful thinking but gives me hope
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You never can tell. It's more about habitat IMO. I was thinking that the lack of pressure in Canada from Covid was going to send more birds down but that never seemed to come into fruition..
 
Bgoodman30 said:
It's sad really. It's a game of the haves and the have nots in AR. Even some of the haves are struggling right now and the have nots are SOL…. By haves I mean like the white oak duck woods etc. Spots where they can have their own private reserves. West TN is dead right now most folks I run with aren't even hunting…
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I agree with this 100%. White oaks… struggling. Strait Lake… struggling. Cache River Farms… struggling. Those are BIG money outfits. We've hunted once at our AR flooded rice field lease and killed 3 ducks. Had a member go pick up his wheeler today and hunted and didn't even see a duck. Drought and warm temps have punched this season square in the balls.
 
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You can look at this graph and see duck numbers in TN have fallen off a lot recently.

I don't know what is going on with the current weekly count. But they have erased the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 season data. They do mot have any of the current season counts up at all either. Seems a little fishy to me.
 
Dodge Man said:
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You can look at this graph and see duck numbers in TN have fallen off a lot recently.

I don't know what is going on with the current weekly count. But they have erased the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 season data. They do mot have any of the current season counts up at all either. Seems a little fishy to me.
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Anything related to twra and "information" is fishy. You can bank on that.
 
Don'tDrinkTinks said:
I agree with this 100%. White oaks… struggling. Strait Lake… struggling. Cache River Farms… struggling. Those are BIG money outfits. We've hunted once at our AR flooded rice field lease and killed 3 ducks. Had a member go pick up his wheeler today and hunted and didn't even see a duck. Drought and warm temps have punched this season square in the balls.
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I'm quite certain one of the farms you mentioned is not struggling at all. But what I could tell while in Arkansas was they are hurting for water and ducks. Not nearly as bad as west TN though.
 
Dodge Man said:
Thanks, all of the TWRA links take you to the 2021 couts. They did work back around Dec 1. I even did a google search for them yesterday and everything i pulled up was old counts.
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I don't think TWRA is flying counts. If I remember right, the pilot retired right around the end of 21, and the plane was in pretty bad shape. I have not heard of them buying a new(er) plane or hiring a pilot to fly one.
 
TNGunsmoke said:
I don't think TWRA is flying counts. If I remember right, the pilot retired right around the end of 21, and the plane was in pretty bad shape. I have not heard of them buying a new(er) plane or hiring a pilot to fly one.
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I know they count white lake from the ground or by boat however effective that may be….
 

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