Black duck numbers seem to be recovering well

J

john ford

Member
With the breath of spring, I have taken my Gunning float out to devoid myself of the winter blues. And the large flocks of blacks were a welcomed sight! Still mallards out number the natives but the 30 plus bird flocks surely show great promise. But the eider numbers are lower than I have seen or recorded in the last 30 years. Let's hope they can recover as well.
 
I both love and hate the postseason for this reason, there are always always always way more ducks around than you'd ever see during the season and they'll be in all of the spots you were hunting throughout the year in large numbers. I went out to shoot a few crows recently and my first shot of the day was purposefully long enough after legal time to be sure that I'd see at least how many ducks and geese would get up from the surrounding areas and I was in awe. To see several hundred come from a hole that you never see more than a dozen in during the season is amazing, but also a little heartbreaking.
lots of blacks and mallards and ever a few divers well inland, and of course a pile of geese are around. what I would give to hunt through the end of feb instead of January!
 
Yes. But I have not seen flocks in this numbers in decades. I agree that a coastal season that starts in mid November and goes to late January would be wonderful.
 
John: Do you think the numbers you are seeing reflect growing populations, or just ducks staying north or migrating north early given the warm winter we've had?

I've seen thermometers at 50 degrees or higher in Maine 4 of the last 5 days, yesterday up in Farmington!
 
I have kept a log for 30 odd years and this is the first upswing in numbers. That being said. you raise a really good question about the temperature and the availability of food and open water
 
I cant tell you much about the historical numbers of my area as I'm transient and only get three seasons at most anywhere I go. I can say that I'm seeing more birds now than I did last year (my first season in Mass) and that's a lot. This is exciting and helps drive my desire to continue the post-season scouting progress.
 
its crazy because I don't think of this part of the world as a particularly abundant area in terms of waterfowl, but there here and the scouting shows it. these past two seasons have brought me very close to matching and almost exceeding the numbers of harvested birds when I was just off the Potomac river in VA where at my peak I shot and recovered just over 80 birds myself. Maybe I'm just maturing in the sport (finally after 15 seasons or so), but the lift in limit on blacks will certainly be of benefit.
 
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