Yesterday was a great day outside and ducks came rolling in at late yesterday. Hearing reports of really good numbers all over NE Alabama besides what I saw. Never seen so many so early maybe I will be a great year.

Gonna be a bunch of snow up in the northern Mississippi valley this week. Minnesota and the Dakotas. While we get summer weather here.

I hope all you duck hunters have very good seasons. Y’all are due one if anyone is.

You ain't kidding. I pretty well quit duck hunting about 8 years ago. It was declining bad at that time and I haven't saw much that made me think it had gotten much better.

It’s been awhile

I can’t get over what folks are paying for clubs in AR as bad as it has been.

I’ve seen some folks on here say that lease prices will go down if it stays bad but I don’t believe it. I hope they’re right though.

It's bad. None of us are alone.

The good news is that the ducks numbers are at record levels just like they have been each almost each year for nearly 20 years and the limit is 6 per day.

So.... everyone rush out and get a lease, buy a license and a bunch of gear, spend a bunch of money in motel rooms and travel to rurual towns, etc.

Those ducks will be here before you know it.

Meanwhile back in reality... the ducks will be sitting on the edge of the ice because we have shot all the ones that have the strong instinct to migrate off a corn pile and fly south.

It has been bad for last several years here too. If it were not for farm ponds, we would have been SOL.

I’ve been preaching for at least 5 damn years that we need a 45 day season with good splits to relieve the pressure and outlaw every damn motion decoy made. It will never happen because it’s all about the money. Outfitters are ruining Arkansas just like they have everywhere else and I’m not blaming the farmers because I’m a capitalist too but go to 45 days nationwide and see what happens. But it’s never going too

Will the Canadian border closure help let more juvenile ducks make it south this year? Will all this grass on the TN river attract more ducks locally? I’ve seen an ass load on wheeler already. Mostly gads but it’s a lot here

I could get behind that. Amazing mojos were ever made legal.

Rumor has it we’re in for great migration since duck hunting in Canada is mostly Americans from what I’ve heard

Could be just a rumor though

8000 are at Wheeler as of now. Usually a lot less this time of year

I will go a step forward. Season needs to go into February, period. Purists and so called "experts" will say ducks are already paired up. I will throw the BS flag on that for the most part. When you see 4-500 redheads at the end of March first of April time frame along with all other duck species, something is wrong. I saw this last year. IMO, put a two week split in. One week in December and one week in January. Run the first 14 days in February. This could increase the numbers available to hunt based off what I have seen the last 5-10 years.

Extending the season into February would for sure help us here. We always have a lights out youth hunt in February but it will never happen because of all the political hoops and biologists in the way. I go to Alberta twice every fall and I do really think a lot more young ducks will make it because the American hunters going up there are a huge percentage of the duck kill numbers that won’t happen this year. I’ve always heard that the birds killed in Canada are a very small number of the actual kill numbers in North America. I dang sure missed going this year especially missed killing the snows and specks

Those March/April birds are returning birds most likely. Redheads and Pintails winter down past the Laguna Madre into central Mexico and are some of the last to return.

The reason you see all those birds right after the season has to do with hunting pressure. They magically appear just after the season is out. Been that way for years.

The best thing that could ever happen to this State would be to force Alabama Power to put in some de-watering units along all the river shoreline they have raped and pillaged from the citizens of the State of Alabama. They haven't done a single thing for waterfowl that I know of other than direct the Marine Police to write you a ticket if you get out of your boat. Nobody ever thinks about that. Not a single piece of habitat improvement that I am aware of that was significant in any way.

I've got some close friends and family members that are hardcore duck hunters (in the AR/TN/MS tri-state region)...........I honestly don't remember the last time the general consensus among them was "it's been a good year". I got bit by the duck hunting bug several years back...like, bad...but never got the opportunity to scratch the itch. by most accounts, I never missed much. Maybe one day the hunting will improve a bit and I'll give it another go.

Arkansas state game and fish has a Facebook ad campaign targeted to out of state duck hunters. Just about every time I scroll through Facebook I see one of their paid ads. Trying desparately to get more people to come to hunt (like they don't already have enough people hunting there.) I'd be pissed if I was an AR resident hunter

That is funny! After passing regulations that greatly restrict how many days out of staters can hunt public land, it is no surprise that the out of state license sales plummet.

All about the money

Arkansas can't figure it out. They wanted to restrict the out of state hunters because they were shooting all their ducks they supposedly had and now they want everyone to come hunt because they have realized they don't have the birds to begin with..

That's real story with Arkansas... they don't have the birds. You know how I know that.... I'm across the river from them and I don't have the birds I had even 5 years ago either. And it wasn't what I would consider good 5 years ago.

It's bad. People quitting hunting is the only thing that's going to right this ship and I'm not sure where this is headed under any scenario.