Call It What You Want

[bill cooksey]

Y’all might enjoy the TN mallard video in another thread. I don’t recall specific numbers, but out of around 150 mallards with transmitters in TN at the time the Christmas front hit in December, only seven left the state, and they were back within a week. The ducks kept water open on their own during that cold stretch.

More interesting, at least to me, they are finding the average mallard moves less than 2.5 miles once he sets up housekeeping. That is until weather stresses them. Worth noting the majority of refuges where the study is taking place have been there over 50 years, and the clubs around those refuges have too.

They’ve also put equipment in trees to record shooting so they could track when hunting was best. Several interesting things within that data, but most interesting was on days when they purposely rousted the birds out of the refuges shooting in the area went down 50%.

 

[ducaholic]

Based on your first paragraph are still of the belief that shortstopping is not a factor in the migration or lack there of compared the era preceding AHM.

So if the Christmas weather didn’t stress them what type of weather will? I have said in recent years that it takes more sustained and impactful weather to move them than ever before. I’d say the lack of movement/activity at Christmas exhibits what I stated. Understand though that the ducks I speak of are primarily the ducks that come back or imprint to the same consistent quality diverse habitat year after year.

And lastly what do you make of the hunting success decreasing when ducks are forced off the refuge? Sounds like the harassed ducks don’t get killed as often as those that take strolls on their own within that 2.5 mile radius.

 

[Disgruntled]

So you’re saying plowed, bare, brown dirt patches with a little left over waste corn are keeping ducks from migrating south?

Here is one of the many I rode by on my 10 mile bike ride today. I was going to stop and take a picture of the corn no tilled to wheat, but was making good time and didnt want to stop at that point. In the deep freeze birds did use this field.

 

[bill cooksey]

Based on your first paragraph are still of the belief that shortstopping is not a factor in the migration or lack there of compared the era preceding AHM.

So if the Christmas weather didn’t stress them what type of weather will? I have said in recent years that it takes more sustained and impactful weather to move them than ever before. I’d say the lack of movement/activity at Christmas exhibits what I stated. Understand though that the ducks I speak of are primarily the ducks that come back or imprint to the same consistent quality diverse habitat year after year.

And lastly what do you make of the hunting success decreasing when ducks are forced off the refuge? Sounds like the harassed ducks don’t get killed as often as those that take strolls on their own within that 2.5 mile radius.

It did stress them. 21 of them were killed, and I believe that’s more than an entire season otherwise. If you’re asking why it didn’t push them all south, I think several reasons. The front hit just about the whole flyway from the west and at the same time. It also hit just after the solstice.

Pushing them off the refuges was just perceived as additional pressure, and the ducks reacted by getting in a safe spot and sitting tight.

 

[ducaholic]

It did stress them. 21 of them were killed, and I believe that’s more than an entire season otherwise. If you’re asking why it didn’t push them all south, I think several reasons. The front hit just about the whole flyway from the west and at the same time. It also hit just after the solstice.

Pushing them off the refuges was just perceived as additional pressure, and the ducks reacted by getting in a safe spot and sitting tight.

Remember we are talking about the birds that are in growing numbers that have never been further south than the I-40 line and sitting tight on refuges and AHM derived private holdings with diversified food sources. And now you are telling me the weather around Christmas was too late to move them unless it had been the perfect storm per say and even then it wouldn't be likely. Fact is we have rarely if ever got that type of weather during November and the earlier parts of December. The facts are today that more and more ducks are staying further north because of increases in specialized habitat and we will rarely if ever get the timely weather that you describe as needed and we rarely if ever did. That my friend is shortstopping in it's purest form!

For the record in Mid-January 2018 we were covered up in ducks because we got extreme weather. That level of weather is super rare and it was late and the ducks came anyhow. So there is that sliver of hope lol shortstopping be damned

 

[bill cooksey]

Remember we are talking about the birds that are in growing numbers that have never been further south than the I-40 line and sitting tight on refuges and AHM derived private holdings with diversified food sources. And now you are telling me the weather around Christmas was too late to move them unless it had been the perfect storm per say and even then it wouldn't be likely. Fact is we have rarely if ever got that type of weather during November and the earlier parts of December. The facts are today that more and more ducks are staying further north because of increases in specialized habitat and we will rarely if ever get the timely weather that you describe as needed and we rarely if ever did. That my friend is shortstopping in it's purest form!

For the record in Mid-January 2018 we were covered up in ducks because we got extreme weather. That level of weather is super rare and it was late and the ducks came anyhow. So there is that sliver of hope lol shortstopping be damned

There’s no secret it takes more to move them south after the solstice. A storm coming directly from the west with a thaw four days later doesn’t do a lot.

Also, the refuges in this study, and the private clubs around them, average over fifty years old.

 

[ducaholic]

There’s no secret it takes more to move them south after the solstice. A storm coming directly from the west with a thaw four days later doesn’t do a lot.

Also, the refuges in this study, and the private clubs around them, average over fifty years old.

And I will say it again the weather you describe that is needed to move them south of I-40 prior to the solstice in November and early December is super rare and rarely is ever happened in the past. Shortstopping is real and it's habitat driven and it's flyway wide. We agree on one thing though the later it gets the more nasty and sustained the weather has to be! Too bad that this weather phenomenon is also rare and rarely if ever happens but there is hope. Here's to more arctic plunges in between Thanksgiving and the third weekend in December where things get locked up north of I-40 for weeks at a time lol

 

[bill cooksey]

And I will say it again the weather you describe that is needed to move them south of I-40 prior to the solstice in November and early December is super rare and rarely is ever happened in the past. Shortstopping is real and it's habitat driven and it's flyway wide. We agree on one thing though the later it gets the more nasty and sustained the weather has to be! Too bad that this weather phenomenon is also rare and rarely if ever happens but there is hope. Here's to more arctic plunges in between Thanksgiving and the third weekend in December where things get locked up north of I-40 for weeks at a time lol

Uh, the severe weather is needed after the solstice. Some consistent cold fronts featuring good winds and hard frosts at my latitude used to be normal in most seasons. We had virtually neither of the two from Thanksgiving until two days before Christmas.

I believe in the last three seasons I’ve had enough ice to require effort to break it fewer than ten days, and that includes the Christmas freeze this season. That’s not the old normal.

 

[ducaholic]

Uh, the severe weather is needed after the solstice. Some consistent cold fronts featuring good winds and hard frosts at my latitude used to be normal in most seasons. We had virtually neither of the two from Thanksgiving until two days before Christmas.

I believe in the last three seasons I’ve had enough ice to require effort to break it fewer than ten days, and that includes the Christmas freeze this season. That’s not the old normal.

Fact is that type of frosty weather ain't moving anything more than the early migrators and those are becoming fewer and fewer because ducks simply don't have to come to La. anymore Bill. It's a habitat based dilemma. On one hand everyone wants what is best for the ducks and habitat provides that and on the other hand hunters want to see ducks when they hunt and if a larger and larger percentage are locked up tight on quality diversified habitat designed specifically to meet their needs for an entire migration then they ain't coming unless the weather is extreme and longer in duration than ever before. We can agree to disagree until the cows come home but AHM and the habitat that it will spawn will be the worst thing to ever happen to the deep south duck hunter. I said that in 1998 and it rings louder and louder each year!

 

[LADucks]

It's easy to say "they'll come again with the weather" during a time-frame we don't have it. When it does/has come, "don't worry, it came from the wrong direction, wasn't quite right". Over the last few years, that theory is getting backed into a corner due to "the required cold front" apparently having to be so perfectly timed and extreme. Show me where we used to get those "extreme, perfectly timed" fronts on a regular basis 10-20yrs ago. Everyone says there is a pile of historical weather data, has someone not gathered that in the duck world? I'm not talking about avg. temperature being 2 degrees warmer either. I'm talking about the supposed overwhelming phenomena of the last 10yrs of our fronts now being from the west and not the north and no longer happening in November and early December.

Now don't mistake me as blaming this whole thing on man. But when someone says "it's all weather, if we get the weather like we had ya'll will shoot ducks just like you used to"... that's a missed opportunity for compromise.