Time passes fast during duck season, even when the hunting isn’t good. It was a beautiful morning again Friday, but with little wind and almost no ducks, it was as sad as I have ever seen in 40 years of duck hunting. I’ve never seen ducks just disappear during the first split like they have this year. And it isn’t just here. It’s all the way up to Missouri. And they didn’t all go south. We had some folks from Gueydon up here hunting today because they weren’t killing anything down there. When the folks that host the Louisiana Duck Festival and the Louisiana State Duck Calling championship don’t have ducks, what’s up with that?
We just don’t have any ducks in the Delta to speak of. I talked to a few people who had fairly good hunts in the backwater along the river, including quite a few mallards. Hunting in the rice fields is just poor. Some of the best spots around we had folks that did not fire a shot. Even up at the Cache River in Arkansas, things are slow. We did talk to some people from out in Texas who are hunting the peanut country and they have killed a lot of mallards.
I don’t know what it is. I really don’t, but the ducks we had left on that full moon and haven’t come back. I’ve seen it 80 degrees before and we still have ducks. We at least have some teal. It’s very unusual for it to be cold and have all this water and no ducks. One consolation is if you like to goose hunt, we are seeing lots of them.
I hate to say it, but the good news is that the first split in the East closes Sunday and maybe during the downtime we will get some more ducks. Stay tuned. And stay safe.
