Bluebills on Okeechobee

J

John Van Houten

Active member
Well the last day arrived, hunted bluebills (Broadbills) on Lake Okeechobee. 4 of use in a 17x50 gator trax boat. We took turns shooting for sport and drakes only. Of course last guy shot a hen. But what a great hunt. Right off the bat we were greeted by a yellow rat snake, I was happy it wasn't a cotton mouth. I don't know why but the bluebills were over abundant on Okeechobee and for that matter also the big bend area of Florida. All in all it wS a good hunt. Oh yeah when we got home there was another snake laying on the floor board of the boat.IMG_20240128_142305.jpgIMG_20240128_142241.jpg
 
Sounds like a great hunt!
No lack of bluebills on Hillsborough Bay in downtown Tampa, or in one of the stormwater ponds down the street from my house!
I'm about got myself convinced to do some scouting the next few weeks or so and then (finally) hunt Old Tampa Bay this fall.
 
I hunted South Florida at the end of December and we also saw unusually high numbers of bluebills. Usually wads of ringnecks down there with no concerns of bluebills, but we had to really pay attention to our shots with them mixing in together
 
Glad to hear they are still abundant in other places. I am assuming they were lesser scaup? Not the greaters that those of us that would typically say “broadbill” more often than not encounter.
 
Jim Donofrio said:
Feds need to up the limit to 3 or 4 lots here in NJ
Click to expand...
Jim,

I’m not an expert by any means but it would seem we could certainly support, and I would be in favor of, a 4 bird limit with no more than 2 hens. Would make the hunts last a bit longer and hopefully even out the hen to drake ratio a bit. Decoyed a bunch of groups of 20+ bills this year that were 100% drakes. Doesn’t seem healthy for the population
 
The bluebills on the stormwater pond by my house in Tampa are all greaters.
And about a 50:50 mix of hens and drakes, which I found to be unusual.
With some mottled ducks, blackbellies and park mallards mixed in.

Local abundance does not indicate the population is doing well overall.
Just like pintails. Ask they guys in coastal TX or parts of California and they will tell you the limit on pintails needs to be 4.
The Scaup population is still way down from historic levels. The trend seems flat, we may be at a new normal??
But then the warming trend in the arctic may increase their breeding range. So who knows what the future holds.

That said, if the annual scaup count is above 3 million, I think believe it could hand a 3 bird limit with only 1 hen.
 
There were good numbers of bluebills this year in the Merritt Island area too. Good to see since they have been scarce the last few years.

Love the yellow rat snake....though the ones I've seen tend to have an attitude problem.
 
Seen more bluebills here on eastern NC than I ever have. Talked to some of the guides and they said bluebills were more abundant than bufflehead this year. First year I've never seen a ruddy duck but shot my first white wing scoter and boys shot some oldsquaws. Odd year indeed.
 
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