Cold snap good for hot duck season
The arrival of a biting chill in Texas last week sparked the growing excitement of the state’s duck hunters looking to expunge the memories of a frustrating 2018 season.
Up north, iced-over lakes and wintry gusts have sent waterfowl soaring south at just the right time.
The icy exodus is just part of what could be a perfect concoction for those going afield as a new season begins.
“We’ve had a couple of really, really good fronts already,” said Kevin Kraai, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s waterfowl program leader. “Unlike teal season, where we never had a front. Sounds like Canada is getting really, really cold and pushing out ducks and geese. This is pretty rare to have this many fronts back to back and this kind of cold weather, even before our season is open.”
Most waterfowl action in the state began Nov. 2. Duck season for the South Zone runs through Dec. 1. The season then takes off until it resumes Dec. 14 and concludes Jan. 26.
The state’s North Zone will open Saturday and lasts through Dec. 1. It picks up again Dec. 7 and finishes Jan. 26.
Goose season also began Saturday and ends Jan. 26 in the East Zone and Feb. 2 in the West Zone.
The frosty conditions aren’t the only reason for duck hunters to be optimistic. Although most of Canada was dry, an abundance of water in North Dakota and South Dakota made for an incredibly successful breeding season.
“The Dakotas had some of the best breeding conditions they’ve ever seen,” Kraai said. “That should equate into a bunch of young, vulnerable ducks, especially dabbling ducks. Unprecedented conditions lined up to make baby ducks, and they did.”
Record wetness brought on by late spring snows and excessive rainfall in late summer and early fall created excellent survival conditions, which yielded prolific broods in eastern North Dakota and South Dakota.
Deluged agricultural fields were either too wet or completely inaccessible to plow or even plant, Kraai said, and some of those fields that did get plowed and planted were not harvested due to the excessive rains.
Haying, which can be a vulnerable moment for hatching ducks, was delayed for weeks in those regions. Instead, ducks settling in that landscape found peace and quiet. Nests were left intact by idle hay sickles.
Pintails, teal, wigeon and gadwall appeared to have a good nesting season in the Dakotas, and although those birds can easily slip into the Mississippi Flyway, Kraai said there is good evidence those birds will meander to the Texas Gulf Coast.
An arctic blast is emptying those breeding grounds, spurring the migration. Within that fall flight, there will be more juvenile birds than last year, which should only enhance the promising prospects for hunters this season.
Unlike the older, more experienced birds who have made the primordial journey before, the young birds are unaccustomed to the roar of smoking barrels from waiting wingshooters.
The hope brought by a productive breeding season does not end as the birds take flight.
Kraai said because most of that water remains on the landscape as it begins to freeze, there is potential for those conditions to be replicated next year. And although it has a negative economic impact on those who rely on agriculture in that region, it is good news for duck populations.
Pintails, a species of great concern over the last several years that has seen a marked decrease in aerial survey numbers, would stand to gain the most.
“If these conditions persist, and even maybe improve in places like Canada, because Canada was pretty dry … we’re looking at some of the best conditions for pintails that we’ve seen in decades,” Kraai said.
Fingers are crossed for a rebound of the iconic bird. The drake’s slender spike of tail feathers and chocolate head are symbolic for waterfowl enthusiasts across the country.
This season marks the first for a one-bird bag limit for pintails. The conservative restriction will carry over into next season as well, hopefully paralleling a productive nesting season. The goal, Kraai said, is to push populations over the long-term average, and perhaps eventually increase the bag limit to two.
That can happen, if conditions hold form.
“Things are looking up for pintails, to put it simply,” Kraai said.
A superb breeding season and cold-triggered migration sets up nicely for Texas hunters, but it does not complete the equation. A lot hinges on the type of habitat birds find when they arrive.
“Ducks have an incredible, uncanny ability to know where the best habitat is without having to actually fly over it,” Kraai said. “They just know where to go.”
Along the Gulf Coast, it is a bit of a mixed bag.
The Chenier Plain, a more than 200-mile swath of coastal wetlands and prairie stretching from Galveston to Vermilion Bay, La., is waterlogged. A substantial supply of freshwater is beneficial to holding ducks, giving the birds plenty of options when the shooting starts.
More water allows birds to spread out. However, the plentiful amount of water does not nearly mimic the flood-like conditions waterfowl hunters saw through the winter last year. Ducks enjoyed limitless options across a soaked landscape, which was a boon for birds but a pain for hunters.
Farther south, in areas like Matagorda and down the lower coast, it is much drier. The most optimal places in those dry locations will be where water has been purposely pumped in, most likely by a hunting outfit or club that is geared up for waterfowl.
Those who pumped water in are probably sitting on a pretty good situation. The lack of water in those areas will cause birds to concentrate in the same places as hunters.
Birds will have less options to move around, too, when the shooting starts, which Kraai said should be on the minds of hunters when they go afield in these dry areas.
“Land managers are going to have to be real cognizant of how much pressure they put on, what bodies of water they hunt, to keep the birds in the country,” said Kraai, noting the Chenier Plain is set up much better for the pressure put on ducks.
That pressure can be a sensitive balance. Too much, and birds will be pushed out. Too little, and they will be content to loiter.
Regardless, the table is set. And it appears more advantageous for hunters than last year’s bust of a season.
Hunters can have an aggregate daily bag limit of six ducks. Those six birds can include no more than five mallards, three wood ducks, three scaup, two redheads, two canvasbacks, one pintail and one “dusky duck,” such as the mottled duck. TPWD reminds hunters that dusky ducks are off limits during the first five days of the season in each zone.
A timely migration, a bountiful breeding season in the Dakotas and adequate habitat along Texas’ coast make for a trifecta of conditions that can produce a banner duck season.
All of that can change with the fickleness of Mother Nature. But for now, Texas duck hunters have plenty to peak their excitement.