How Long Can It Go?

Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson

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Duck hunting success here in north Alabama is more dependent on fall rain than anytime in my 44 years career. The collapse of Lake Guntersville gadwall population and its perennial hunting opportunity has shifted hunter reliance to swamps and low lands near the river. State and Federal refuges hold ducks and hunters seek those birds on lands nearby. Those lands, unlike the lake, need rain to flood and attract ducks. By the time December gets here if we don't have water on the landscape ducks stick to the refuges or bypass us altogether.

The past three years have been incredibly frustrating for Thomas and myself. We spend many weekends managing the duck properties my employer owns and lets us hunt. These are small plots of land close to the Tennessee and Flint Rivers. We plant grain crops and manage for moist soil. Many spring days are spent maintaining farm equipment, surveying the land, battling beavers, tending to water control structures, bush hogging, spraying herbicide, discing, planting seed, building blinds, etc., etc.. The chart below shows the cumulative rainfall Madison County received in the fall for the last ten years. Notice the last three. You have to look back 10 years to see a fall with less precipitation. For three years in a row our efforts to prepare the land for hunting season have largely been in vein. We have not had water until the last ten or so days of the season. By this time ducks have established patterns and don't seem eager to tempt flying into flack over newly flooded areas. By late Feb and March they eat everything we prepare.

So I ask, how long can this dry pattern persist? Are we at the end of a terrible run? Or is this the new norm? I certainly hope its the former. I'm getting frustrated with results.

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Between El Niño/La Nina cycles and climate change, it’s hard to say.
Weather patterns are no longer “normal” and are getting less predictable.
Heck, you could get too much water this year for all you know???
 
Having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to barge in pumps to restore their marsh during past drought years, the camp I work for finally installed their own 30" pump on a canal connected to the ICW last fall:

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So I'm guessing we can expect above average rainfall from here on out.

But I don't expect assured water to improve our dwindling migration, just a place for our new "brown-headed mallards" (black-bellies) to congregate.
 
Eric Patterson said:
Duck hunting success here in north Alabama is more dependent on fall rain than anytime in my 44 years career. The collapse of Lake Guntersville gadwall population and its perennial hunting opportunity has shifted hunter reliance to swamps and low lands near the river. State and Federal refuges hold ducks and hunters seek those birds on lands nearby. Those lands, unlike the lake, need rain to flood and attract ducks. By the time December gets here if we don't have water on the landscape ducks stick to the refuges or bypass us altogether.

The past three years have been incredibly frustrating for Thomas and myself. We spend many weekends managing the duck properties my employer owns and lets us hunt. These are small plots of land close to the Tennessee and Flint Rivers. We plant grain crops and manage for moist soil. Many spring days are spent maintaining farm equipment, surveying the land, battling beavers, tending to water control structures, bush hogging, spraying herbicide, discing, planting seed, building blinds, etc., etc.. The chart below shows the cumulative rainfall Madison County received in the fall for the last ten years. Notice the last three. You have to look back 10 years to see a fall with less precipitation. For three years in a row our efforts to prepare the land for hunting season have largely been in vein. We have not had water until the last ten or so days of the season. By this time ducks have established patterns and don't seem eager to tempt flying into flack over newly flooded areas. By late Feb and March they eat everything we prepare.

So I ask, how long can this dry pattern persist? Are we at the end of a terrible run? Or is this the new norm? I certainly hope its the former. I'm getting frustrated with results.

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Eric~

Sorry to hear about your lack of H20.... That photo surely depicts a gorgeous landscape - but it's got me wondrin' how much surface water I "should" be seeing.

We have not had drought years - but the rainfall distribution throughout the year has been highly irregular for the past several. Record rainfalls in a month or two before the to gets turned off for a couple of months of drought. It stresses all kinds of systems, natural and manmade.

No pumps hereabouts - only unreliable and unpredictable beavers.

And, Mallards have been inexplicably low (3 on the farm last Fall v. a normal of 75-100) for about 5 or 6 seasons now.

All the best,

SJS
 
We have been saturated all year this year. I can't get the water out to let my moist soil unit grow. I finally got about 95% of the water out before sunset last night, then an unpredicted 3" of rain occurred overnight which means once again I will have to go pull boards to let the water back out. Cant win for losing myself here--just opposite way for me--lol.

I'm betting once I get all the water out, I will have the worlds best 60 acre cockleburr field unfortunately. Season setting up to be bleak for me here too.
 
Weather can be frustrating. It never seems to do what we want and need. I can only offer the old New England adage...."If you don't like the weather, wait a minute".

Rick mentioned a pump. Our clients regularly use trash pumps to dewater excavations and shunt water between ponds. While there are lots of regs to be aware of, your waterfront property has access to a big river. If you rent a gas powered trash pump that discharges a modest 500 GPM, you can apply 3" of water to 50 acres in less than a week. Just a thought.
 
More ducks (CRP) is how we fix it. Populations have been declining for 15 years or so. I’m due north of you on the Cumberland and it’s hardly worth getting out of bed locally anymore.
 
All

Thanks for your comments. I hope the below address them.

Pumps would fix the problem in the areas shown in the aerial photo I posted above. We think they wouldn't have to drill deep to hit water given the proximity to the river. But that's an expense I cannot bear and I'd have to convince the owner to fund it. It is a possibility.

We are banking on an El Nino cycle to break this terrible pattern. I didn't even mention the wet springs and summers we've been having. Two years in a row our crops drowned. This year we planted a second time and it isn't doing well. Farming low land is not easy and it is no wonder WRE takes this type of land out of production and restores it to historical condition. There is no way you could make a profit farming these areas. The soils are too wet. We have more most soil than corn but really want a blend of food for the ducks, and they certainly like corn. Sometime in Feb or March they show up and consume every last kernel so we know we are helping them get ready for the flight home to breed.

The aerial picture was taken right before we planted. You should only see water in the river. In winter months the two light green rectangular areas should be inundated. For three years in a row it hasn't happened until the the last ten days in Jan. Ideally we'd have water on them no later than Thanksgiving. I know that won't always happen but it is now been far too long.

It's just been a really tough go the past three years. Too much spring and summer rain, only to have very dry autumns. I really need the pattern to reverse. I do have faith it is going to change. Then I'll probably be trading one set of aggravations for another! :ROFLMAO:
 
Hot, dry falls also mean you need a lot more water for the ground to saturate, swell, and seal good enough to hold water than what it would take to fill it under normal conditions, whether it comes from a cloud or a pump.
 
As we all know drought and flood conditions can last a helluva long time or longer. I've learned that permanent blinds and "Good Old Reliable" Places to hunt are folly and we all get sucked into them. Less is more, downsize and be ready to Go other places to Follow the birds is what usually transpires next. That option has now been greatly reduced and more than ever we are at the Mercy of the Bird Populations. Build it and they shall come is in movies. Shootem often and they GONE. Waterfowlers adapt, either ya do or spend yer time and $$$$$$$ doing other things. Every season is unlike others. I won't attempt to get into WHY we do what we Do.
 
I can't relate as a duck hunter. My "home" early season spot hunts best in low water years, when it's puddle duck magnet. In normal and especially high water years, the bottom vegetation is too deep for puddles. But as a trout fisherman suffering through (another) warm, dry summer, I feel your pain. Haven't picked up a fly rod for trout in 5 weeks! Anyone who appreciates a good weather rant should read this, which I believe is the source of SJ's quote above: https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/essay/new-england-weather
 
Years ago here in Indiana. There were days if we saw ducks and geese it was a good day. That was before cell phones. I don't know what we did all day while out on the big Ohio River. I guess just looked around and ate glazed doughnuts and drank coffee. Not being on a flyway. I guess we didn't expect much? We must have fun because I'm still doing it 40 later? Maybe I'm a slow learner? We don't pray for rain during season. If it did, the river floods, trees and trash come down river and makes a mess with decoys.
 
No one controls the weather. El Nino and La Nina are way overrated, and in my book, just something else to talk about on weather forecasts. Think of all of the new weather terms that have been invented in the last 30 years. Derecho's, bomb cyclones, ad nauseum. Sounds to me like you are in a long term(more than a year) drought. The Dust Bowl lasted a long time. Better days will come. Maybe this year! Success at predicting the weather longer term depends on luck and not much else. I hope you get the rain you need so your work pays off.
 
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