I grew up south of I - 10 and hunted the Point Au Fer for all of my youth.....since then i have hit the Lake Arthur area on rice fields and fresh water marsh. The ABSOLUTE most ducks i have EVER seen in one area was in the peanut fields of Oklahoma last year.
They classify them as tornados ie F-4. It was the strangest hunt i ever had...we are looking at a blue bird sky and not seeing a bird in sight, laying down in a coffin blind....dry as a bone and drinking cold "pops".
I'm shaking my head thinking we came all this way for a beautiful sunset and the guide says they will be here in 15 minutes...keep looking in the north. I'll be damed but off of the lake a couple miles away a black cloud picks up and starts moving toward us.
We had 10 of us on the ground and got our limit in 2 groups. You COULD NOT flock shoot....
They already have my money for next year.
My take on the duck migration is that we have lost generations of ducks since i was young hunter. Ducks are creatures of habit and will travel where there is food, water safety and sex. If they are not FORCED to make it down here, why come? They guide told us "folks from down south" that the best hunting is when it is sleeting....because they do not know if it will snow and lock up the ground for a week or not so they dive into the fields. It takes atleast week of frozen fields nad covered in snow to get them moving south....
Last time i checked....has not snowed down here in a while. I guess we are getting all of the "older snow birds" that cant tolerate the cold weather anymore.
Just my take....
RC
|