How few ducks are there here???

Carl

Carl

Well-known member
Staff member
So few, that I came to work after scouting for about 2 hours.

Dropped my son off at school, got the ramp 7:00am-ish. Launched and headed out onto the northern end of Mobile Bay.
Went to all my normal late season spots.
Spots that normally have lots of gadwalls and bluebills this time of year.
Spots where I killed limits of gadwalls, bluebills and buffies almost every hunt this same time last year.

It was pitiful. Ran about 20 miles total and saw maybe 20 ducks, all of which were pairs of buffleheads scattered all over the place. Only gadwalls I saw was one good sized flock in a spot that's in a safety zone. Went back to the ramp at 9:00 and put the boat on the trailer, came on to the office.

Ole Bull looked really irritated when I put him back in the truck.

Cant remember ever seeing this few ducks this late in the year here. Talked one of our biologists at the ramp, said I was the 5th party he checked, only 2 groups pulled the trigger and they had 1 duck each. He said he hasn't checked a bluebill since New Years. He needs to collect more avian influenze samples and hasn't seen enough ducks during game checks to meet their quota for the year.

Guess I will go down to MS Sound and hunt the redheads my last two days. At least Bull will be on the water.
 
Carl, we just got a good push of puddle ducks here in the NC coastal sounds. It's about time. I don't think they'll make it down to you by tomorrow though. :(
 
About 10 years ago we had a cold snap in February. Few days later a HUGE raft of lesser scaup showed up on Mobile Bay. Was over a mile long. Had to be 2-3K birds. in it.
They must have known the season was over!
 
Yep, those 2 weeks in the 70s during what should have been our peak migration period pretty much did it.

Some years its good to be at the bottom of the flyway, other years, not so much.
 
If it weren't for redheads and buffies down in that area, my season would be in the "terrible" category!

I guess I should clarify that the area I scouted today and the area I hunted from last week are completely different ecologically and 30 miles apart.
Years when northern Mobile Bay is covered up with gadwalls and lesser scaup we might have very few redheads and greaters down on the Sound. And vice -versa
Difference this year is we don't have any bluebills at all in either area.
 
Few enough that I haven't spent much time duck hunting other than the woodducks that may flush while we've been out woodcock hunting.
 
Been wondering if you were having any luck over there.
Have you headed down to the coast for redheads?
 
The last few weeks have been in the 40-50s in southern Michigan. Lake st Clair, Lake Erie , probably southern Lake Huron and the two rivers in between wide open . I can probably go shoot(with a camera) your thousands of BB Buffs Cans and Reds. Not to mention Canadas and mallards. If I get out with the twins maybe I'll go yell at the birds and tell them about all the great food you got down there. Maybe make a yelp page for mobile bay with real good reviews I could refer them too :).

Have fun with the rest of your season

Tony
 
They aren't here either. Luckily I overslept, but my buddies who went without me saw a handful of buffleheads and 10 mallards seen with no shots fired.
 
Nope I haven't headed down to the coast for redheads. Everything I've heard from over there has been pretty poor. One of the places that I hunt right on the coast was severely damaged by Hurricane Hermine so there weren't ducks there either. Another permitted place down on the east coast (Merritt Island NWR) that has been doing pretty good in the past got hammered by Hurricane Matthew and as it happens, that was the ONLY permit I drew for ducks this year.


Steve said the bluebills finally showed up down at his place this past week. Normally they are there by the beginning of January and we can at least have river hunts without a ton of people. But since the bluebills hadn't shown up, there wasn't much reason to hunt down there either. So, we've been looking for quail and chasing woodcock and shooting wood ducks that we flush. Nice thing about that kind of hunting is that we can sleep in :) unless it's supposed to be warm, there is no reason to get up before the sun comes up.
 
Carl, we don't have any bluebills in NC either! It's very weird...maybe next year. Do you think we'll ever get to shoot a 4-bird limit again? Wehn we target scaup, the 2-bird limit sure does make the hunt go too quickly.
 
If the increasing trend in scaup numbers continues as it has for the last 10 years, we may see a liberal season for scaup in the future.
But the population estimate will have to get back above the 5.4 million population level a/o Long Term Average.

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