Saturday, Nov. 15, is the first of two special youth hunts in our area and it should be a good one. There are a lot of ducks here, but there isn’t a whole lot of water. Where they’ve got water, they’ve got ducks — lots of ducks.
In fact, about 50% of the ducks seem to be mallards. It’s more than I can ever remember seeing this time of year. In fact, I spoke to a friend in southern Minnesota where the season has already been open. He said for a while they weren’t seeing any ducks, then all of a sudden they were covered up. They got limits every day two days and then he said there were more ducks headed south than he’s seen in his 35-40 years of hunting. That included lots of mallards.
Everybody’s getting ready for the season opener in our area and things are looking very encouraging. We are supposed to get a good rain Sunday and that will help, unless we get too much and scatter the ducks. Reports are that there are lots of ducks in Arkansas, especially around the Stuttgart area where they have water. Word from the marsh in south Louisiana is that it’s loaded up, too.
Goose season opened up last weekend in the East Zone and we’ve been getting good reports of high success on specklebelly geese from just about everybody that went after them.
As a reminder, we will have a duck report every day of the East Zone season, beginning Nov. 22. Remember to mark your calendars for the season: Nov. 22-Dec. 7 and Dec. 13-Jan. 25. And remember to get all your duck hunting supplies at Simmons’ Sporting Goods in Bastrop! Always check your official Louisiana Hunting Pamphlet to ensure you are following official rules, regulations and season dates.
