blue marsh lake, pa

The question didn't seem real specific to me. I like to offer advice and help people when I can. If they ask me if the ducks are flying well, I'll tell them. I don't tell them which cove to go to, but I try to help somewhat. Kind of like the same advice you get at the boat ramp when you are going after crappie.....no specifics. I think sometimes we read too much into a question or comment. I noticed the tag line under a member 's name "Tuckerton, NJ Gunners Paradise". This didn't make me grab my gear and head to the east coast, nor does "Sportsmans Paradise" make me head to Louisiana, even though both are advertising the opportunity for success for the outdoorsman. The comment, IMO, was as harmless as "is it tough getting a blind at Lake Whatsitsname?" I think if the questions were about specific landmarks, points, currents, duck numbers, species, wind direction, depths, etc....there would be more cause for concern. My state sounds needy anyway, like everyone is constantly asking for help. "Show Me..... a great hunting spot......Show Me........where to put up my blind............Show Me...........why the ducks don't fly to the SW corner of the state..........Show Me.........on the internet some really cool places to hunt that I don't have to work hard for! Heck, I guess if I wanted to be ticked off, I might as well be mad at every hunting magazine that tells about the great hunting spots here and there across the state. These articles usually have all (or at least) enough info to pack the hunters in. These articles usually come out about two months after I am done scouting and working my butt off and about a week before the season starts. If anyone does see a huge influx of hunters to Tuckerton, let me know and I will get my own tag line that says....."Springfield, MO.......we saw a duck once....and the girls here are ugly! That ought to keep them pesky hunters away. That's my 8 cents.......taxes are really climbing. dc
 
So....Aaron.

Anything else you would like to ask about duckhunting?




:)

(No worries...it always works out in here, and I think you stated a fair position in your reply... for what its worth)
 
This is a huge (to some) issue around Anchorage, Alaska. On our local forum we get at least two postings a month from new guys wanting to know where to go, but not wanting honey holes.

I am typically the first to reply telling them that their question is not original and to use the search function - everything they need to know will be easily found. There are four public marshes/swamps on the road system so it is not that hard to figure out. Learning where you can't hunt is harder, and there are several posts on that as well.

What has some of the guys up here reacting like Jim is that there are more postings about successful hunts in just one of the these spots. One guy regularly takes limits in this spot and posts about it. Another military dou also posts their end of season totals (impressive numbers for 50 to 60 season days before being iced out). The other guys claim that these postings have resulted in a huge increase in users to a very limited area. I think they are right, but what the new guys don't know is that this spot is not easy to hunt and if you are not prepaired to haul your boat over a 15 foot tall silt bank you are not going to be hunting the marsh up top. You can walk in, but the marsh is huge so you won't go far and just crowd up with other guys walking in.

With the low water this year where I hunt there are fewer users and the guys that can't hunt it have also moved to this other area increasing the pressure. Over the years I have sat in this area and wished more people would hunt it so that the birds would not just sit out there with no pressure. Based on internet posts this area is not as productive as the other spot. Base on my own experience and "ramp surveys" it is just as productive as the other spot. It is just harder to hunt due to it being twice the size as the other spot and another 30 to 40 minutes out of town. And there is the whole "those ducks taste like fish eggs" thing as well. I have yet to find a puddler tasting like fish eggs. It is a nice rumor that keeps out the riff raft.

However, the one thing that has had me puzzled in all this is that the old timers state that 10 years ago there were fewer than a handful of hunters after opening day. In that ten years the local population has increased by about 100,000 (25%) but there appears to be a 100% (or more) increase in full season hunters.
 
Ray brought up an interesting observation....an increase in full season hunters.... The states collect hunter participation by man days/hours for the HIP program and that data should be available. It would be interesting to do a quick analysis using that data to see if what Ray suspects is occurring, as I have also suspected an increase in what one might call an increase in the intensity level of participation by the hunting population. This could be done easily in a spreadsheet if the data was at hand.
 
Jim, I meant that it didn't sound much different than "wow, looks like there might be fish in this lake." Thanks for the info on the license plate and making me remember that I forgot to mention the local girl's tooth situation as well. Maybe that license plate is the reason the ducks are gone. Maybe back fifty years ago hunters were griping about license plate tag readers that gleaned all of the hunting secrets from the back of a car where as now they just get it from the internet. I'm just poking some fun. IMO he didn't get "down in the weeds" with his line of questioning, but that is MY opinion. If you don't agree, that's cool too. I better get back to making decoys if I am ever going to get a chance to read where the new hot spots are for trout season in the local magazine. dc
 
cork mallards.....and cork mallards....and cork mallards.....and cork mallards. If I get this big order done, I can finally start playing with cedar Hoodies.
 
I can confirm that a couple of well known managed public marshes in Ontario are seeing increased hunter numbers. This is mainly driven by the substantial increase in late season hunters. The numbers are tracked by day. With mandatory bird check in it is also confirmed that the number of birds taken this year was a record although it appears that birds per hunter day may be off slightly.

This would appear to point to the notion that there are more full season hunters.
 
Matt,

The one problem with this data is that if they count stamp sales there is no way to make a determination as to how many full season hunters there are in a given area. After the stamp is sold there is no more data coming in that year.

So they use the HIP data from when they sold the stamp. Here we fill out a form each time we buy a state stamp and document what we did the previous year. This data over the years has been shown that the average stamp buyer in Alaska takes 6 ducks a season. A 107 day season and only six birds. Back in 2003 or 2004 the average was 4 if I remember correctly.

This tells me that there are still a lot of hunters that only hunt one or two days and keep the average down, but with the state average up by two birds this tells me that there is a significant increase in either the take by a few or in the total number of hunters.

I could probably ask a bio what the total HIP numbers are to find out what they are averaging against.
 
Ray,

I might have been thinking of some other survey as I seem to fill out several a year. Some surveys do ask for days-a-field info and it is possible I had a middle age brain spasm.. Utah also calls one or twice a year also for various surveys.

I would think that data that might give a hint as to hunter participation throughout a season, is collected some where..

Matt
 
We as Barnegat Baymen are pretty hush hush about our spots, trhere are many who like to ramp watch when they dont feel like gettin to it on the salt and finding out for themselves, i gun in the same parts as Jim and thats the way we barnegat bay do it and get to it. I totally get where Jim is coming from. keep this in mind boys, it's always the obvious that gets overlooked, some of us count on those who overlook it.And by the way, jim is right......There are toothless women here in tuckerton, but we all chipped in and got a good dentisther in town for the off season. HAHA
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top